converting the display from BLOKS to TCD-W. No more.
My experience is always good to help professionals (doctors, lawyers, technicians, mechanics,.....) by explaining and guiding with your special situation. One must be careful not to hurt their egos as they all have it BIG. Gingerly!!
We engineers call such people "Besserwisser" (The One Who Knows Better)
That is why I said “one must be careful not to hurt these professional’s EGGO”We engineers call such people "Besserwisser" (The One Who Knows Better)
No way.
We'd miss your stories to blather about.
I'm an autodidact in bike repair too, and I start with reading documentation and (dealer) manuals. You can find a lot of them on the Shimano homepage including how-to's with pictures. It helps to understand how components work as discussing open points helps too. Only after acquiring knowledge I'd put my hands on. And then it's easy learning by doing which includes doing things wrong from time to time (but seldomly).
Learning lessons is costly be it money or time to acquire knowledge for DIY. I stick to the belief: if you want it done properly, DIY.
Now tutorials are a different level. I can't see any responsible amateur bike mechanic do them for real brake maintenance, and nor would a professional do it. You'd be blamed for every mistake that beaten customer makes be it following strictly or not.
Are you ready for this? True Story: My brother bought his Electro folding bike down today to go riding with me. We're about .2 miles in our ride, I look back and he's pulled off to the side of the road. I turn around to see what's up and he tells me has no brakes. Seriously? I'm like, what do you mean you have no brakes? So he starts trying to adjust the brakes from the handle bars. No good. He only manages to get slight breaking power in the back. We ride .2 miles to the gas station. He tells me, "all bad I got nothing." I couldn't believe this @#!$% was happening. His bike has mechanical disc brakes. I had a look around and seen that his brake had one hex screw holding the cable in place. I unscrewed it a little so I could pull on the cable to make it tight and then tightened it back up. Guess what? He had front brakes again. I told him to spin the wheel and make sure they're not rubbing. All good. I did the same procedure with the back. All good. It was pure unadulterated luck! I know nothing. I was desperate to ride with my bro and maybe stupid on my part but the temporary fix worked. I used my little Park tool set to make the adjustment. Torque? I just guesstimated. We ended up continuing on our almost 30 mile ride with no further hiccups. He blamed his wife for the brakes malfunctioning. I blamed him. 
What a day. 
Those cables will stretch and sometimes it will happen very quickly almost out of the blue. Good on you to carry the basic tools with you.
Another note: lbs manager called me back this afternoon and told me the mechanic sprayed rubbing alcohol on the rotor and sanded the brakes. She offered to replace my rotor and break pads at no cost to me but honestly whatever he did killed the noise and the brake seems to be working fine. I'm leaning towards just leaving well enough alone.
Probably due to COVID. They had my bike 4 days for a derailleur adjustment/ tune up/ clean. I was going nuts without my Vado. In normal times, it takes about an hour to change it out. I think mine was done the same day, I picked it up the following day. Hope all goes well.
...and another home bike mechanic is blossoming
Another note: lbs manager called me back this afternoon and told me the mechanic sprayed rubbing alcohol on the rotor and sanded the brakes. She offered to replace my rotor and break pads at no cost to me but honestly whatever he did killed the noise and the brake seems to be working fine. I'm leaning towards just leaving well enough alone.
Good job!
[
...and another home bike mechanic is blossoming
. Not even. I remembered seeing a YouTube video on mechanical disc brakes. I wasn't going any further then the cable tightening screw. If that didn't work, we were turning around and heading back. My brother seems to think after he buys his bikes that he doesn't need to get them serviced. Small expense to keep them maintained or incur far greater expenses due to neglect.
Appreciate it! I listen to the vets like yourself. More often than not I'm pointed in the right direction by advice. A lot I don't get yet, that's why i leave it to more capable hands of experience. What I do get, is that bikes have to be kept up in order to perform properly. Whether that's paying someone who knows what they're doing, or learning how to do myself.
I made changes to both bikes. The same Mirrycles. I've changed the grips to Ergon GP5 (Lovelec) and GP3 (Vado) and these Ergons have horns. The only way to make the mirror and a grip horn coexist is to rotate the mirror down and inwards. The bars become narrower, which is good.
I posted in amidst a hot/heavy string of fix-it tutorials that seemed out of place in a brag thread. Useful in an other thread. Of limited utility here.That's the purpose of this thread.Bragging about our Bikes.
In the States there's the United Bicycle Institute, https://bikeschool.com/. It's certainly not a university, it's what we'd call a trade school. They offer a well respected program in bicycle mechanics including a series in frame building. UBI certified mechanics are in high demand here on the West coast. This is the level of mechanic you want working on your bike. The local 'bicycle kitchen' was founded by UBI certified mechanic. He knew just about everything about every brand, from cottered cranks to SCRAM 1:1 derailleurs, and more.
