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[–] 82 points 14 hours ago (20 children)
  • [–] 5 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

    Anybody with half a brain an allen wrench and an inclination can fix their own bike.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 hours ago (1 child)

    Yeah…unfortunately that act of self sufficiency gets more difficult when I have an electric motor on my back wheel and any maintenance on that wheel requires disassembling it.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 hours ago*

    One of the reasons I personally dislike electric bikes is that you are just adding a point of failure. Can get so much further on a regular bike without the battery dying. A bike is a perfectly paired down device and that is its whole power to me.

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  • [–] 9 points 9 hours ago (3 children)

    Lots of AI-proof trades that pay well. HVAC, welding, plumbing, mechanics, etc.

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  • [–] 8 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (2 children)

    HVAC starting wage of $18.00 in 2026? (quick search)

    So, like 80s minimum wage ($6.00 an hour then is $18 an hour today). I made that at Qwik Stop. I'm not joking.

    I'm sorry kids I am older and know I could barely make it in 80s and you have it so much worse.

    I had to eat packets of ramen for years, always had roommates, couldn't afford a car or pet. I'm really sorry

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  • [–] 2 points 2 hours ago (1 child)

    A plumber's salary bought me a house at 27 and now less than 10 years later I have enough savings to buy another if I wanted to. Of all my friends the only people who own the house they live in are the ones working in trades. Every single one of them with an office job is renting and doesn't even own a car.

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  • [–] -1 points 1 hour ago

    Ok, but a lot of plumbing is ripping people off. A neighbor needed a pipe capped for a shower renovation, a plumber charged them $300. I capped the remaining pipes when I heard this. Being a home owner means navigating around the sleazy trades, a combination of scam artists and "professionals" who fake the job.

    But it comes down to people don't know how to practically do anything any more. The idea of taking my bikes to a mechanic doesn't make any sense.

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  • [–] 19 points 13 hours ago (12 children)

    I guess so. I was curious if there is a similar projected demand in the US. I don't know if that info is on this page, but it does show the median annual wage to be $38k https://www.bls.gov/oes/2023/may/oes493091.htm

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  • [–] 12 points 10 hours ago (10 children)

    Yeah that's trash and I bet the only places with any actual job market for bike mechanics stateside are high COL areas.

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  • [–] -1 points 8 hours ago (9 children)

    I earn about that much and I own a car, a house, and have 4 years' wages worth of savings.

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  • [–] 7 points 8 hours ago (8 children)

    Ok but do you live in an area where bike commuting is a viable option for a majority of people? Also just to be clear 38k is 23% below individual US median wage.

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  • [–] 0 points 8 hours ago* (7 children)

    I'm not sure what bike commuting has to do with this but yes, it's a 30 minute trip to the city centre from where I live and there's a bike lane the whole way. Living expenses here are lower than in the US but not dramatically so.

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  • [–] 5 points 7 hours ago (6 children)

    Because bike mechanic isn't a job that's going to exist outside of areas where large amounts of people ride bikes, hence my original point of it probably not being a job outside high cost living areas in the US which tend higher density that the lower COL areas. So a 38k median wage isn't going to be remotely livable in any of those areas.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 hours ago* (5 children)

    Do smaller cities and towns not have bike shops in the US? My city has roughly 200k residents and I can think of at least 5 different bike shops on the top of my head.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 hours ago (4 children)

    This is highly anecdotal but I live in a suburb of the 3rd largest city in my state I know of one bike shop in the area and Google tells me there's a hand full of others within like 20 miles of me. Also for good measure the reviews on one of them says it's staffed by volunteers.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 hours ago (3 children)

    I think my broader point still stands. There are things one can influence and there are ones they can't. Where people live is one of the things they can. Living in a large city is expensive so one needs to earn more to sustain that. However that's not the only place to live. I most certainly have the lowest income of my friend group but I'm also by far the wealthiest because of how much cheaper my living expenses are. My mortgage for a house is half of what they're paying in rent a month for a small apartment equally far away from the city centre. They just choose to live in the capital so their living expenses are so much higher that despite the higher wage they have nothing to show for it. Also, I started my own business because I got tired of working for others and despite having zero experience and nobody helping me I still managed to make it work so if I can do it, anyone can.

    I just get incredibly frustrated with the apparent apathy online of people just blaming external factors about their circumstances as if they've got no control over anything themselves. So many of the struggles people deal with are self-inflicted. This equally applies to my fellow entrepreneurs as well who are not happy where they're at. They have all the control over their business but they still choose to follow the same path as everyone else while expecting different results.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

    Ok cool but my main original point still stands 38k median in the US is not a good wage.

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  • [–] 0 points 6 hours ago (1 child)

    Below average doesn't equal bad. If the wage covers your living expenses and you have money left over even after that then what does more money achieve? Nothing. Unless you want to keep up with the Joneses.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 hours ago

    Ok but average across an entire country is not average in low cost of living areas, if a person is making the countries median in a low cost of living area that would mean their making of the median for the area they live in. Wages will rise and fall depending on cost of living.

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