I've taken two motorcycle mechanic courses, and have yet to take my motorcycle into a shop for maintenance.  Where I live, you could spend as much as $100 per hour for labor.   If you get yourself a service manual and feel comfortable with some of the basics (ie. oil change, chain adjustment, clutch adjustment) you can save your $$$ and learn to do the work yourself.    I'm probably looking at doing a valve adjustment shortly which according to my last estimate was 2hr's shop time.

I wish I could do a valve adjustment in two hours 
I find getting the shims out to be almost impossible. I should probably order one of them tools made for the job.

I knew nothing about bike maintenance before I got my GS, but I muddled my way through my carb sync, valve adjustments, oil changes, etc. The only thing I've taken it into the shop for was getting my new rear tire mounted and balanced, was worth the 45 bucks to not duck with taking the wheel off in my apartment lot. I think the valve adjustment took me about an hour and a half.

I find after I've done a particular maintenance once, I'm generally more comfortable and quicker doing it the next time.   Actually, one of the mechanic courses I took had the equipment to remove and balance tires so I replaced them.   Saved me $150 in labor and pretty much paid for the course as well.  It's nice to have someone with experience check your work afterwards.

At the moment I'm paying to get the work done.
Two reason one I'm lazy and I'd rather the time working on my project car and I've only got till december to get it on the road before they change the regs and it won't pass.
The second reason was I promised my wife I would not work on this bike unless we were tight on the money after, the dog and I had a minor disagreement with the GN250, I had and I ripped my right to pieces. Put her off maintenance on vehicles a bit. Made more cautious I must say too. Most of the flesh grew back as the bone survived and the surgeon sort of pieced some flesh over it and encouraged the muscle to regrow. I can tell you what exposed bone is weird to touch. When they cleaning my thumb bone (whatever its called) it actually made me want to throw up. Plus I had to live with basically an open wound for 9 weeks before skin grew over what became the new end of my thumb. But I digress.

Having a simple set of tools is beneficial for a lot of things than just working on a bike or car. They can be had fairly cheap but you get what you pay for. I've got a tool collecting obsession, but you can never have too much right? I can also understand if people just don't have time or simply aren't comfortable with doing the work themselves. It gives me extra money on the side

Quote from: Shaddow on July 28, 2010, 06:55:08 PMMost of the flesh grew back

Pics and details or I'll harass you until Saturday.  Or whenever. 

Quote from: Homer on July 28, 2010, 11:10:19 PM

Quote from: Shaddow on July 28, 2010, 06:55:08 PMMost of the flesh grew back

Pics and details or I'll harass you until Saturday.  Or whenever. 

I don't have any pics of the wound. I didn't have the foresight to take lots of pictures at the time and after the operation it was bandaged except when I visited the surgeon to have it inspected and re wrapped. I can take a pic of the regrown thumb when I get home from work if your still interested but it looks fairly normal now.