Bike Repair for Teens: Fix Flats, Tune Gears, Get Paid

What you actually do

Somebody wheels you a bike that hasn't worked since last summer. You patch or replace the inner tube, pump the tyres properly, clean and oil the chain, adjust the brakes so they actually stop the wheel, and set the gears so they don't skip. Forty minutes, and a bike that was junk in a garage is a bike a kid rides to school.

Most bike problems are the same five problems. Learn those five and you can fix the large majority of what arrives.

The customers are parents, and what they're buying is not having to load a bike into a car and drive it to a shop that will keep it for a week.

What it costs to start

This is the one idea here with a real tool cost, so know it before you start.

• A set of tyre levers and a patch kit, about $12.
• A floor pump with a pressure gauge, about $35. This is the thing that makes you look like you know what you're doing, and hand pumps are miserable.
• A multi-tool with hex keys, about $20.
• Chain oil and a rag, about $10.

So $50 to $80. At $15 a tune-up, that's about five bikes before the tools have paid for themselves, and then they last for years. Keep spare inner tubes only once you know which sizes your street actually rides.

Learn before you charge. Fix your own bike, then your family's, then a friend's for nothing. Watch a repair video from a bike shop, not from a random channel, and check what you did with an adult who rides. Brakes are the part where getting it wrong hurts somebody.

Find your first bike this week

April is your month. Everybody wants to ride and nothing works.

1. Fix your own bike so it's obviously well kept. It's your advertising.
2. Ask three families with kids: "Is your bike working? I do tune-ups for $15 and flats for $10, in my garage." Parents of younger kids say yes to this fast.
3. Put a note up at the school bike rack or the community centre with a parent's number on it. The bike rack is where the broken bikes literally are.
4. Do the first one really well, then tell the customer what you found and what you'd watch. That's the sentence that gets you the neighbour's bike next week.

What to charge

Keep a short and honest price list.

• Flat tyre, patched or new tube: $10, plus the cost of the tube if it needs one.
• Basic tune-up, tyres, chain, brakes and gears: $15 to $20.
• Deep clean and tune: $30, and say it'll take you an hour and a half.

Six bikes on an April Saturday at $15 is $90 for a morning's work. Spring is your busiest month by a distance, and you'll get a second smaller rush in June when school ends.

Never mark up a part you didn't pay for, and show the customer the old tube. Being the repairer who explains what was wrong is what makes a 14 year old trusted with a $400 bike.

Ask an adult who rides what a shop near you charges for a tune-up. You should be well under it, and you will be.

Rules and staying safe

Read this with a parent.

• Brakes are safety equipment. If you can't get a brake working properly, say so and tell the customer to take it to a shop. Never hand back a bike whose brakes you're unsure about, whatever it costs you.
• Test-ride every bike you work on, with a helmet, somewhere with no cars, before you give it back.
• Work in your own garage or driveway with a parent home. Customers drop bikes off. You don't go into their garages.
• Tools have sharp edges and chains are filthy. Glasses when you cut a cable, and wash your hands before you touch your face.
• Don't touch anything you haven't learned: no wheel rebuilding, no hydraulic brakes, no e-bike batteries. An e-bike battery is not a thing to open, and a parent should say no to that outright.
• Never take a bike you don't know the owner of. A bike that turns up cheap with no story may well be stolen, and a parent should be part of any decision to buy a used bike.
• Take payment when the bike is collected, in cash or by e-transfer to a parent's account.

What Aisha would do

Aisha is 14 and lives in Ottawa, a city full of bike paths and of winters that leave every chain rusty by March. She'd start the week the snow goes, because she'd have watched the same thing happen every spring.

She'd learn three repairs properly rather than ten badly: flats, chains, brakes. Then she'd tell the two families she babysits for, because they already trust her with something more important than a bike. Her advertising is a note on the school bike rack with her mum's number on it.

She'd also keep a list of the tyre sizes she's seen most, and buy two spare tubes in those sizes, so a flat becomes a fifteen-minute job instead of a trip to the shop.

When it stops being fun

A bike so seized that the pedals won't turn. A gear that skips no matter what you do. A parent who wants a twenty-year-old bike made new for $15. Grease under your nails for a week.

Two rules save this. Say no to bikes that are past helping, and never guess on brakes. A repairer who turns down a hopeless bike keeps their reputation. One who hands back a bike that doesn't stop loses it in an afternoon.