Hit bike #10,000 on my repair stand yesterday and just sat down in the shop
I have been turning wrenches at my shop in Dayton for 22 years and I finally logged repair number 10,000 yesterday afternoon. It was a tune up on a rusty cruiser a college kid dropped off, nothing special at all, and that is kind of what got me. I started keeping a paper log in 2003 when I opened, just a cheap notebook with the date, the bike, and what I did, and somewhere around 2011 I moved it to a spreadsheet my daughter set up for me. Flipping back through the old pages, the jobs were so different then. Mostly 10 speeds and BMX bikes, lots of friction shifters and caliper brakes, and now half my rack is e bikes with hydraulic discs and motors I barely understand. The tools changed too, I still have the Park spoke wrench I bought with my first paycheck and it feels like a toy next to the stuff I use now. Part of me misses how simple a cable swap used to be, but I also like that the trade keeps me learning. Any of you old timers keep a count of your jobs, and did a number like that sneak up on you too?