Complete career change, have you, would you, what would you ?

[MyLittleStudPony]

I've done it a few times. It's often hard and humbling. But rewarding when you ultimately succeed in a whole new area.

If I was going to do it again, I'd want to combine my hobby of blocking with work. So maybe a coning goon, you know, the ones who cone off roads for roadworks and stuff. Or drive one of those wide load escort vehicles. This would combine the ability to block in a professional capacity with the option to live in a van too.

A while back I was thinking of being a pension stealer. People said to me: Oh no, how could you consider such a thing?". And I would reply: "What you may not realise about pension stealers is they spend very little time actually stealing the pensions.... and most of the time they just ride round and round and round on a jet ski, laughing".

[Yorick]

After Brexit, his Euro work plans could be very limited

The Euro aspect isn't that important in truth, more ideal would be NZ and Aus for the UK winter. Whether that would be a proper job in coaching or just casual stuff in a bar etc is open to debate and plans.... Most of the UK time for summer, spring and autumn would be coaching MTB in Forest of Dean.

Woo hoo. I went there backpacking in my mid 20s

Awesome experience

[Buckaroo]

Stick with what you know repairing bikes, do it local and in the alps out of a mobile workshop in the back of your camper/motorhome. With James being a coach with you both being in a race paddock work will come in to keep you as busy as you want to be and give you the freedom for riding too.

I've had a chat with 1-2 of the race organisers who are happy for me to set up in their paddock on race/practice days with a signed up van offering services/repairs/support. That would need a slightly increased outlay in terms of having some parts with me at the time, but nothing too crazy.

You can get van signwritten for £200 or a full magnetic version (security reasons and removing) for £350, which again, isn't crazy money.

Keep in mind that setting up accounts for parts can take some time and the margins are very small to start with until you have them in place, plus waiting for parts to arrive can be a pain. There's obviously some critical spares that you'll struggle without. When my son qualified, he was provided with lists for tools and parts. It was very expensive but entirely necessary. His qualification cost the best part of £2000 plus accommodation. Once you have accounts set up, it becomes more manageable. Also, customers are often willing to take good quality used parts, so never bin anything.
It's a bit like pregnancy. You can't be half pregnant, no more than half invested in a new business venture.
My son has never advertised and has more work than he can handle, much of it is putting right the shoddy work from the bigger bike shops.

[Count Steer]

At my current age, I'd be hard pressed to do something completely different, I've got mortgage and bills that need paying, and I'm not enough of a people person that I can go around touting a business to complete strangers (I have tried that - when I started out doing web-dev - it's a thankless task and was 99% of my day with nigh-on zero interest, very soul-destroying).

Wife calls that stage of business development the 'kissing frogs phase'. You have to kiss a bloody lot of frogs before one of 'em turns into a prince.

[weeksy]

Stick with what you know repairing bikes, do it local and in the alps out of a mobile workshop in the back of your camper/motorhome. With James being a coach with you both being in a race paddock work will come in to keep you as busy as you want to be and give you the freedom for riding too.

I've had a chat with 1-2 of the race organisers who are happy for me to set up in their paddock on race/practice days with a signed up van offering services/repairs/support. That would need a slightly increased outlay in terms of having some parts with me at the time, but nothing too crazy.

You can get van signwritten for £200 or a full magnetic version (security reasons and removing) for £350, which again, isn't crazy money.

Keep in mind that setting up accounts for parts can take some time and the margins are very small to start with until you have them in place, plus waiting for parts to arrive can be a pain. There's obviously some critical spares that you'll struggle without. When my son qualified, he was provided with lists for tools and parts. It was very expensive but entirely necessary. His qualification cost the best part of £2000 plus accommodation. Once you have accounts set up, it becomes more manageable. Also, customers are often willing to take good quality used parts, so never bin anything.
It's a bit like pregnancy. You can't be half pregnant, no more than half invested in a new business venture.
My son has never advertised and has more work than he can handle, much of it is putting right the shoddy work from the bigger bike shops.

Absolutely cool with setting up the accounts, i've already got 1 i can go straight to, the other couple i need i've got plans and contacts for.
Regarding the qualifications, Cytech is the generic cycling one, but chatting to my LBS owning mate, i'm not sure i'll bother. There's potentially a couple of quite specific courses/tasks i'll think about doing instead.
I'm slightly worried about getting work, but we have quite a few contacts in racing circles as you'd expect, so with the location being in the middle of FoD and the racing contacts, i'm hoping it'll work out.
In terms of spares, again i've chatted to my LBS mate and we've got sort of a plan there for what's needed in terms of chains, cassettes, pads, bleed kits, gear inners/outers, bearings and even things like having a couple of tyres for emergencies.
Through my contacts with DMR/Upgrade Bikes i'll be able to sort things like Grips, Pedals, Bars, Stems etc.... Then the contacts with Oxford i'll be able to sort all the consuables between them and STANS...
I've already chatted with Kinetic Bearings regarding getting them sorted at a Trade Account.

I see a chunk of my work potentially being things like Pivot bearings, Headsets, Wheel bearings, the sort of things that scare off a person who's not done them before, but for someone who's done plenty, they're a nice easy job.

I'm very much hoping that i'm still sitting here in 12 months time discussing this, rather than having to jump in there.... but i do like to be prepared as we're pretty sure it's only a matter of time.

[weeksy]

While we're all here and bored...

PPBR by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

I was thinking something like this, nice and simple. Then contact info, Instagram and Facebook info etc.

[rodbargee]

My SIL is making some big adjustments finished his army career leaving as the regimental srgt major of 4 reg, Air Corps, glowing career now working as HSE at a mine in the North east ( the one that has dark rooms under the sea 2 miles out and a mile and a half down) looking for dark matter or Nutrinos or something like that, interesting..... if he gets into that stuff though. He's finding the fact its no longer his train set a little frustrating.

[weeksy]

My SIL is making some big adjustments finished his army career leaving as the regimental srgt major of 4 reg, Air Corps, glowing career now working as HSE at a mine in the North east ( the one that has dark rooms under the sea 2 miles out and a mile and a half down) looking for dark matter or Nutrinos or something like that, interesting..... if he gets into that stuff though. He's finding the fact its no longer his train set a little frustrating.

Yeah that's deffo not on my list of things to try

[Mussels]

Looks like in the next 3-24 months my time at current job (25+ years) is coming to an end.

I'll only be 54-55 so a little early for retiring and i'm not actually sure i want to yet.

Sadly the IT job market has turned to shit and i'm 'worth' a lot lot less than my current role... and even then, i'd have to rethink a lot of house moving plans and potentially commute to an office, which isn't my preference at all.
/Snip

Rather than turning to shit it has continued evolving while you sat still, the interesting and well paid job I started in years ago is now minimum wage and boring. I realised a while back it was a dead end and went contracting on projects. I was able to break into newer work that was in demand and keep hopping jobs until a company made me a good offer to go PAYE again, the best bit was being able to steer my career a bit with the fairly frequent job hopping. Another perk I appreciated was being laid off for 2-3 months every year or two, I would feel fresh and interested going into a new contract.

[weeksy]

Looks like in the next 3-24 months my time at current job (25+ years) is coming to an end.

I'll only be 54-55 so a little early for retiring and i'm not actually sure i want to yet.

Sadly the IT job market has turned to shit and i'm 'worth' a lot lot less than my current role... and even then, i'd have to rethink a lot of house moving plans and potentially commute to an office, which isn't my preference at all.
/Snip

Rather than turning to shit it has continued evolving while you sat still, the interesting and well paid job I started in years ago is now minimum wage and boring. I realised a while back it was a dead end and went contracting on projects. I was able to break into newer work that was in demand and keep hopping jobs until a company made me a good offer to go PAYE again, the best bit was being able to steer my career a bit with the fairly frequent job hopping. Another perk I appreciated was being laid off for 2-3 months every year or two, I would feel fresh and interested going into a new contract.

Yeah i get you... but in truth i'm not the IT nerd i was 25-35 years ago. I guess arguably i could within my current role re-train in another aspect of IT, but i'm not convinced that's how i want things to go

[MrLongbeard]

No offence fella, but that's a car crash of a logo.
Is it a bike or a pile of misplaced letters, O's, G, E, W's after a bike has fallen apart on itself.

[weeksy]

No offence fella, but that's a car crash of a logo.
Is it a bike or a pile of misplaced letters, O's, G, E, W's after a bike has fallen apart on itself.

Not even remotely offended

Feedback on that sort of thing is exactly what i want and will need. It's a free logo designer thing who then charge you for the extra stuff.

logomat by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

logomat2 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

[gremlin]

As long as you use the tag line "My business is going downhill fast".

You're welcome.

[weeksy]

logomat by Steve Weeks, on Flickr


Quite like this one.

[Yorick]

This one is cool

Screenshot_20251211_153036_Samsung Internet.jpg (90.83 KiB) Viewed 605 times

[weeksy]

This one is cool

Screenshot_20251211_153036_Samsung Internet.jpg

I quite liked that one too, but maybe is a bit 'busy' ? I think it may work better on the van side/back, but not sure on the social media platforms.

[ZRX61]

A bloke I knew made good money from bicycles. He'd steal enough to fill his Tranny van in Cambridge, then sell them in Oxford. Then he'd steal enough to fill the van there & sell them back in Cambridge. Pretty sure some bikes made more than one trip. He made the trip every week for years.

[ZRX61]

One of my cousins had an IT company. Gave that up & became a personal coach*... which he manages to do online from various beaches in Greece, Bali & Vietnam

*Me: So what's that involve exactly? Blowing smoke up peoples arses?
Cousin: Pretty much.

[Silly Car]

My 2p worth.

If it is going to happen in 2 years time, start the business now. You will be able to build up a client bank / brand awareness over the coming months and years which will make the transition to it being your main employment easier when the time is right.

You can always have a ‘full diary’ should demand increase beyond your capacity.

It may mean you feel like you are on the go 24/7 but it’ll be worth it in the end, and it won’t be as much of a bump when it comes to stopping one and transitioning to the next.

[Mussels]

Before I went contracting I considered starting a local repair service, I even had someone almost begging to invest in it. I tried it on a small scale through an agency and found people expected more than I was willing to do for the price they were willing to pay.

Are you able to do a bit to test the water before going all in? The meets sound like a good idea but I'd expect most there are pretty tooled and clued up, can you offer anything they are willing to pay for? I'd be tempted to offer a bike taxi service on the side but that could cost a lot to insure.