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Careers in motorycles

  • 02-01-2012 11:51pm
    #1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,465 ✭✭✭✭


    If you were footloose, thirty and single with no recognisable training or qualifications and you were facing a long period of financial hardship ahead, would you be mad to consider beginning an apprenticeship?

    I've been thinking about where my life is going and I just think if I'm going to be poor (but too poor to study) for a couple of years, I may as well be working toward some kind of qualification?

    I'm currently still in New Zealand backpacking and working but I've been thinking I could possibly move to the UK and seek some kind of training from one of the big dealers?

    How foolhardy an idea is this?


Comments

  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,397 ✭✭✭Paparazzo


    cantdecide wrote: »
    If you were footloose, thirty and single with no recognisable training or qualifications and you were facing a long period of financial hardship ahead, would you be mad to consider beginning an apprenticeship?
    I've been thinking about where my life is going and I just think if I'm going to be poor (but too poor to study) for a couple of years, I may as well be working toward some kind of qualification?

    I'm currently still in New Zealand backpacking and working but I've been thinking I could possibly move to the UK and seek some kind of training from one of the big dealers?

    How foolhardy an idea is this?

    No, you're better off doing something you enjoy doing. No idea of the money involved in it and how long it takes though. Good idea imho, especially if you have no ties, no wife/kids/mortgage


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,180 ✭✭✭Interceptor


    If you eat, sleep and live for motorbikes then yes, otherwise no. What are you passionate about? Do an apprenticeship in that.

    'cptr


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,282 ✭✭✭BlackWizard


    Why would he have to be that mad about motorcycles to want to do it. Reason why I ask is because a lot of mechanics do apprenticeships and wouldn't class themselves are nuts about cars. They just like them and enjoy the kind of trade they are in.

    Is a career in motorcycle mechanics very different from car mechanics?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,180 ✭✭✭Interceptor


    Why would he have to be that mad about motorcycles to want to do it.

    Because he won't be in it for the money. Very few bike mechanics, bike builders or bike shop owners are getting rich at the moment so unless it feeds your soul it sure as hell won't feed your family.
    Is a career in motorcycle mechanics very different from car mechanics?

    Yeah, very few large dealerships and mostly small, back street garages to work in. Most bikers fix their own bikes and the relatively small biking population means that there is a limited amount of work in the area. Now if you are really good at making custom frames and you move to the US on the other hand...

    I'm not saying 'don't do it', I'm saying only do it if you love it. I should have done a bike mech apprenticeship when I left school in 1985 but I didn't and still regret it.

    'cptr


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 559 ✭✭✭turbodiesel


    Because he won't be in it for the money. Very few bike mechanics, bike builders or bike shop owners are getting rich at the moment so unless it feeds your soul it sure as hell won't feed your family.



    Yeah, very few large dealerships and mostly small, back street garages to work in. Most bikers fix their own bikes and the relatively small biking population means that there is a limited amount of work in the area. Now if you are really good at making custom frames and you move to the US on the other hand...

    I'm not saying 'don't do it', I'm saying only do it if you love it. I should have done a bike mech apprenticeship when I left school in 1985 but I didn't and still regret it.

    'cptr

    I left school in 1986 and did it cptr...... Don't regret the apprenticeship, but do regret not trying harder and staying on at school. You're labelled/pidgeon holed when you're an early school leaver as not being bright in a lot of peoples minds......

    Mind you, I've very rarely been without work, but rarely have i worked less than 50 hours a week.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,822 ✭✭✭✭galwaytt


    Because he won't be in it for the money. Very few bike mechanics, bike builders or bike shop owners are getting rich at the moment so unless it feeds your soul it sure as hell won't feed your family.

    Yeah, very few large dealerships and mostly small, back street garages to work in. Most bikers fix their own bikes.....

    I left school in 1986 and did it cptr...... Don't regret the apprenticeship, but do regret not trying harder and staying on at school. You're labelled/pidgeon holed when you're an early school leaver as not being bright in a lot of peoples minds......

    Mind you, I've very rarely been without work, but rarely have i worked less than 50 hours a week.

    Wow - have you been spying on me, or reading my secret diary or what ? :)

    ...long story short: did the LC, and got started doing cars....more out of necessity than anything else, and then got a good tech job in a multinational. That was great, and a fantastic grounding. But, after 5 years, got itchy feet, had started biking in the interim, and then started thinking about combining the two things.......and, instead of taking the money I'd saved up for a brand new RG500 (yes, really.......)......I started looking fir a career in bike's, and that meant going to the UK.

    But, I didn't do the apprentice thing. No, instead I went to full time college in Motorcycle Eng, in Bristol. 2 years full time,with placement as part of it. Best thing I ever did.

    Gave it up years later, as posters are saying, long hours, mediocre pay, and came home, and went st something else. My logic was that working on them all day, the last thing I wanted to do in my off hours was......to do more of the same. So I decided to keep biking separate and enjoyable. Has worked well for me.

    So, putting my 2012 older, wiser hat on it, I'd say this: by all means pursue it, even if you ultimately end up doing something else, it will be time well spent.

    I would suggest a more modern non-apprentice route would be better. More focussed, more advanced, better recognised. Might even be a shorter route as well. Can be used as a door opener to non-mechanic-ing, and even non-biking jobs too.

    Is there any prospect of such study in NZ or OZ ? That would be icing on top imho....

    In the UK, loads of choices of college: Merton, Taunton, Bristol etc etc.....look up MCN for others too.

    Moral of the story for me? Great move. Mind you, I should still have bought the RG500.....can you imagine what it'd be worth today ?! :)

    Ode To The Motorist

    “And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, generates funds to the exchequer. You don't want to acknowledge that as truth because, deep down in places you don't talk about at the Green Party, you want me on that road, you need me on that road. We use words like freedom, enjoyment, sport and community. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent instilling those values in our families and loved ones. You use them as a punch line. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the tax revenue and the very freedom to spend it that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said "thank you" and went on your way. Otherwise I suggest you pick up a bus pass and get the ********* ********* off the road” 



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,789 ✭✭✭slavetothegrind


    As galwaytt has said it will not be a waste of time no matter what, i wish i had followed my heart when i had the chance, i really dislike what i am doing now.

    Oh and there is no way that new RG500 would have survived Galway, you would have been through several hedges on that animal of a bike by now :p


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,822 ✭✭✭✭galwaytt


    As galwaytt has said it will not be a waste of time no matter what, i wish i had followed my heart when i had the chance, i really dislike what i am doing now.

    Oh and there is no way that new RG500 would have survived Galway, you would have been through several hedges on that animal of a bike by now :p

    Tut, tut - oh ye of little faith......Seeing as I have my RGV250K for......21 years now, I beg to differ !

    Ode To The Motorist

    “And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, generates funds to the exchequer. You don't want to acknowledge that as truth because, deep down in places you don't talk about at the Green Party, you want me on that road, you need me on that road. We use words like freedom, enjoyment, sport and community. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent instilling those values in our families and loved ones. You use them as a punch line. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the tax revenue and the very freedom to spend it that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said "thank you" and went on your way. Otherwise I suggest you pick up a bus pass and get the ********* ********* off the road” 



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,789 ✭✭✭slavetothegrind


    May have unfairly judged you there, hooligan bike does not a hooligan make.

    I rode an rg350 once years ago and it nearly bit me hard!
    But then i had little experience and a hamfisted throttle hand.....


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