Your best bet to find out the qualifications for a bicycle mechanic are to simply ask them first hand. Depending on the mechanic, qualifications can vary from the completion of TAFE-approved certificates, to highly specialised training for a specific brand or product, to a basic apprenticeship through a bike store or just plain old experience on the job. Unlike a dentistry, you won’t find a framed certificate declaring the qualifications of each employee at the bike shop.

In terms of official regulation of the industry, it is still a maturing landscape that is on somewhat shakey ground (http://bicyclingaustralia.com.au/2013/02/further-setbacks-employment-and-training-bicycle-mechanics), which we hope to see improve over the coming years as the sport of mountain biking moves from being a niche hobby into a mainstream outdoors activity.

Certificates aside, there are lots of different training courses available to bicycle mechanics from many of the industry’s leading brands, such as Trek & Specialized, Fox & RockShox and SRAM & Shimano – which are arguably more valuable to their skill-set when dealing with high-end mountain bikes, in comparison to perhaps a generic TAFE course.

That doesn’t quite answer your question, as the type of training and the qualification opportunities for mechanics will vary from person to person. If you’re in doubt when handing over your pride and joy to the local bike shop, why don’t you query the mechanic and see what sort of formal training they have completed – it’s a valid question and we would be intrigued to hear the responses you receive.

Enduro