Working in summer: bicycle mechanic
“If you work in a bike shop in the summer, you have to be stress-resistant”
Paula in the bike shop “Kettenreaktion” in Leipzig-Connewitz | Photo (detail): © Ula Brunner
Tube change, adjusting the brakes, selling: summer is peak season for the bicycle shop “Kettenreaktion” (Chain Reaction) – and for trainee Paula. Sometimes, she says, 30 to 40 customers come in at a time. She still enjoys the work.
Paula is very focused: time and again she checks the tension of the spokes, the centering, the running of the wheel. She doesn’t let herself be distracted. Neither by the two customers who are waiting at the counter, nor by her two bosses Sebastian and Willi, who bustle about in the small bicycle shop in the south of Leipzig. Now, at the beginning of summer, there is a lot to do and everyone has his or her job.
Paula values precision work | Photo (detail): © Ula Brunner
Paula advises, repairs and sells | Photo (detail): © Ula Brunner
City bikes, touring bikes, trekking bikes, children's bikes ... | Photo (detail): © Ula Brunner
Paula rides her bike to work | Photo (detail): © Ula Brunner
Half a year more and her training as a bicycle mechatronics technician will be completed. The profession was passed on to her: her father is also a bicycle mechatronics technician, and is proud of his daughter. Because women are still in the minority in this work. Customers often ask Paula about her working in a male domain. “I think it’s a pity when they make a big thing about it and say: Oh, a woman!” At her vocational school, only five percent were women. “But at least there are women there, that’s good. Something’s already happening.”