MTB maintenance course

swissguy

Hi

I'm interested in doing some sort of bike maintenance course, one or two days in length, around the Peak District or North Wales and sometime in mid-May or mid-June. I've not really had much experience doing work on our bikes and decided it was about time I got an idea. I liked the look of the Weldtech courses but I couldn't find any running when/where I wanted.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

nicklouse

http://www.bikeradar.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12534925

Is a good start.

swissguy

Thanks!

I think that covers most of the links I already found, there's not a lot of detail about location, dates or prices. Some of them give email addresses but they don't seem reply :?

swissguy

I appreciate that someone's gone to some trouble to compile the lists in the link there but it's possibly a little out of date or incomplete and it's not helped me too much.

I can give a rundown of those links :

cytech - just bewildering, lots of contents and links but not actually any course dates or locations.

edinburghbicycle - that looks great but I'm not in Edinburgh !

http://www.bike-inn.co.uk/ - that looks great but it's one or two week courses

weldtite - as far as I can tell don't run courses or hide it really well

cyclewales - in the first instance the link does't actually work. But, they do have something, 1 or 3 day courses but only 1 course is scheduled to run this year.

CTC training - a really good effort to produce a calendar but even though I've a couple of week window there's not a single course running.

chasing trails - no actual dates are provided

I've found a bunch of other providers but they're really not very useful. As some general business advice for them :

1. If you've got "new for 2009" on your website it looks like you're not a going concern.
2. If you've got an email address you need to reply to the mails or remove the email address from your material and you should probably stop wasting your money having a website at all.
3. If you claim you're running course and then don't provide dates it just looks like you're a failing business without any customers whether it's true or not.

The best I've found is 1MTB1 in North Wales but basically I'm still looking for

some sort of bike maintenance course, one or two days in length, around the Peak District or North Wales and sometime in mid-May or mid-June

EnglishChris

swissguy wrote:

I've found a bunch of other providers but they're really not very useful. As some general business advice for them :

1. If you've got "new for 2009" on your website it looks like you're not a going concern.
2. If you've got an email address you need to reply to the mails or remove the email address from your material and you should probably stop wasting your money having a website at all.
3. If you claim you're running course and then don't provide dates it just looks like you're a failing business without any customers whether it's true or not.

Hehe...that made me laugh. I'm looking for something similar in the London area and kind of had the same experience as you... looked at a bunch of potentially promising links, but aside from the two week courses, it proved difficult to find anything concrete!

swissguy

ironically I was just updating a website for a business we just bought, the current site is functional but it's not updated often as they have to get some fly by night web consultant to come and do it, I presume that's a problem other small businesses have but it looks an easy trap to avoid.

anyway... it's the lack of concrete dates that's frustrating, I'm only in the UK for a limited time so I'd really want to get something in the diary. I'm beginning to think just one of the private courses is worthwhile. Or, if there's interest could we get a group together?

For example :

http://www.getmountainbiking.co.uk/bike-maintenance.php

The business we've bought is a small hotel in an alpine village, I already do some rides but I'm going to do more and I want to beef up what we're offering for people wanting an MTB break. One of the things I want to be more skilled at is minor repairs and I want to get some ideas about what repair/maintenance/service gear I can provide at the property to support our guests.

flet©h

swissguy wrote:

edinburghbicycle - that looks great but I'm not in Edinburgh !

Did you read their website. They have a store in Sheffield which meets your "Peaks" brief by being about 10 mins from the edge of the National Park.

swissguy

Thanks, I did read it and although they seem to run things there periodically there's nothing at all scheduled other than a day in March.

flet©h

Maybe its not scheduled yet. Why not email them and ask, they are more likely to add the date if they know people want to do it.

Or - why not do the course near your Alpine paradise. that way you can kill 3 birds with one store, learn bike maintenance, develop some links with local bike shops and learn some language skills related to bike maintenance that you can use when helping the guests out with more complicated issues that need fixing at the bike shop.

swissguy

flet©h wrote:

Maybe its not scheduled yet. Why not email them and ask, they are more likely to add the date if they know people want to do it.

I covered that with "2. If you've got an email address you need to reply to the mails or remove the email address from your material and you should probably stop wasting your money having a website at all. "

But it's poor practice, if they want to run courses they need to put the dates up there in advance. If you don't do that then the impression is that you're not really getting any clients at all and aren't really running a going concern. The only way it works is you have to put dates up and be try and fill the places making it clear what numbers you need to make the course happen. Filling a course and wait listing for cancellation or more dates is another thing entirely of course.

As for not being scheduled in terms of dates, it really should be, I'm only talking May. Most people delivering things like SMBLA and the like know a long way in advance what their commitments are.

It's a personal bug bear of mine, I don't have any time or patience for people who are in the outdoor leisure industry with the "it's all about the riding/skiing/whatever any my lifestyle choice" attitude, once they start taking people's money then it's all about the client and they're running a business so they need to act like it. >rant over/paused<

Rant or not, the impression given is one of an unprofessional attitude.

switchback18

Hi,

I'm Steve from Chasing Trails - just an explanation...
The reasons I don't have advertised dates up for maintenance courses are that I've always been asked for mainly 1:1 or 1:2 courses, so for these people can book a date that suits them. I also get asked for courses where people have their own groups together so again they arrange a date that suits the group (min 3 max 8). I also run courses for work clubs sometimes and again these are arranged dates as they're only for the specific company involved.

I used to advertise set dates for group courses but they tended not to book up. If you look at the number of providers of maintenance courses it's much lower than providers of say bike skills courses, which suggests demand isn't as high. I also run more bike skills courses than maintenance courses, although they're reasonably popular.

So Chasing Trails' courses are advertised the way they are just because that, on average, seems to suits people.

Having said all that, I agreed the other day to put up a group course date on the website to allow someone to book at a group price, as he was happy to book well in advance. So if anyone wants to join a group course it will be Monday 4th July. It will be added to the PayPal button soon, or contact me to pay by cheque or bank transfer. Please don't ask for this to be repeated for another date yet (as an individual) in the near future as I'm waiting to see what the take up will be first.

Bit of background, (mostly on the website as well) - I have about 20 years experience in maintenance & wheel building. I've been running maintenance courses for the last 3 years and wheel building courses (1:1/1:2 only) for about the last 2 years. I used to look after a fleet of bikes & staff bikes at an outdoor centre before starting Chasing Trails.

Hope that clears it up a bit, it's the usual can't please all the people all the time I guess, but if the date above suits anyone then hopefully that helps.

Steve.

flet©h

swissguy wrote:

flet©h wrote:

Maybe its not scheduled yet. Why not email them and ask, they are more likely to add the date if they know people want to do it.

I covered that with "2. If you've got an email address you need to reply to the mails or remove the email address from your material and you should probably stop wasting your money having a website at all. "

But it's poor practice, if they want to run courses they need to put the dates up there in advance. If you don't do that then the impression is that you're not really getting any clients at all and aren't really running a going concern. The only way it works is you have to put dates up and be try and fill the places making it clear what numbers you need to make the course happen. Filling a course and wait listing for cancellation or more dates is another thing entirely of course.

As for not being scheduled in terms of dates, it really should be, I'm only talking May. Most people delivering things like SMBLA and the like know a long way in advance what their commitments are.

It's a personal bug bear of mine, I don't have any time or patience for people who are in the outdoor leisure industry with the "it's all about the riding/skiing/whatever any my lifestyle choice" attitude, once they start taking people's money then it's all about the client and they're running a business so they need to act like it. >rant over/paused<

Rant or not, the impression given is one of an unprofessional attitude.

Nice rant mate. However I couldn't give a hoot. Its not my business and I don't need to do a maintenance course. However if you are really keen to do a course and nobody is currently meeting that need then you may need to be a bit proactive rather than waiting for your life to be fixed by a Google search and people on a forum.

swissguy

flet©h wrote:

swissguy wrote:

flet©h wrote:

Maybe its not scheduled yet. Why not email them and ask, they are more likely to add the date if they know people want to do it.

I covered that with "2. If you've got an email address you need to reply to the mails or remove the email address from your material and you should probably stop wasting your money having a website at all. "

But it's poor practice, if they want to run courses they need to put the dates up there in advance. If you don't do that then the impression is that you're not really getting any clients at all and aren't really running a going concern. The only way it works is you have to put dates up and be try and fill the places making it clear what numbers you need to make the course happen. Filling a course and wait listing for cancellation or more dates is another thing entirely of course.

As for not being scheduled in terms of dates, it really should be, I'm only talking May. Most people delivering things like SMBLA and the like know a long way in advance what their commitments are.

It's a personal bug bear of mine, I don't have any time or patience for people who are in the outdoor leisure industry with the "it's all about the riding/skiing/whatever any my lifestyle choice" attitude, once they start taking people's money then it's all about the client and they're running a business so they need to act like it. >rant over/paused<

Rant or not, the impression given is one of an unprofessional attitude.

Nice rant mate. However I couldn't give a hoot. Its not my business and I don't need to do a maintenance course. However if you are really keen to do a course and nobody is currently meeting that need then you may need to be a bit proactive rather than waiting for your life to be fixed by a Google search and people on a forum.

nice rant but a) I'm not your mate b) you obviously do give a hoot for some reason otherwise you wouldn't have replied and c) try and keep up, I did contact the people running the courses recommended on this very forum.

tit

kevolution

I'm putting together some courses based at Afan Lodge. If there's enough interest, I'll get them set up for this summer.
Not the usual basic stuff, these are based on techniques used by World cup DH mechanics to extract every last ounce of performance from your kit. As well as a ride based section, where we'd get out on the trails and set up some scenarios to show you how to Mcgyver a fix to get back to the car.
I've been building Rowan Sorrell's bikes for the last 5 years, and now I'm going mobile in the South Wales area as well as possibly offering maintnance courses at the premier venue in the Afan valley.
We're working out some dates for this Summer, so keep an eye on the Afan Lodge website for details.
www.afanlodge.com