Ladies and Bike Shops

Get a job in Evans.

It might not be the advice that you want, but I think this is good advice for anyone, man or woman, who wants to get a job as a mechanic.

Taking a course is helpful (I took two), but it is nothing in comparison to spending time in a workshop working with people who have been doing it for years.

There are some amazing female mechanics in London, but if you want to become one of these, you need to start somewhere.

I spent a lot of time setting up my own projects before just going and getting a job with a shop, and it was a waste of my time. I wasn't in the position to offer the amount of knowledge that I needed to, and without working with masters I wouldn't have been able to ask the questions I needed to.

Well this is why I want to get a job in a bike shop before I do anything on my own, even though setting up on my own feels like the easiest thing at the moment. I definitely want to and need to learn as much as I can from other people.

But Evans really? I've spoken to a few ex-Evans employees and they said it was pretty awful there. And that's not really what I want from being a mechanic, working in a chainstore.