People often ask me where they can learn about maintaining and fixing bicycles and I normally don't have a very good answer. However, I just received a news magazine from Veloplus, and they will be running courses in each of their four stores that are dotted around the German-speaking part of the country during April and May. Other local bike shops occasionally run similar workshops (particularly the larger shops), so you should try asking around if you are interested, but most shops offer nothing.

Here is the info about the ones at Veloplus: Cost = 30 CHF for 2-3 hours, starting at 7pm, in groups of 10-15 people. Instruction will probably be in Swiss-German, but the shop assistants I've spoken to at different Veloplus stores almost all spoke decent English, so they may be willing to repeat the important points in English, but I don't know. Separate sessions are devoted to women, beginners, tourers, and "Aktive Bikers". There are two sessions of each type offered at each of the four Veloplus branches: Basel, Emmenbruecke (nr Luzern), Ostermundigen (nr Bern), and Wetzikon (nr Zurich) between early April and early May. Each location is also offering a kids session (ages 10-14) on one Wednesday afternoon for 10 CHF for 2 hours. Plus there are special sessions for wheelbuilding and GPS navigation, which are in smaller groups and cost more.

All of the information is on this website.

If you know of similar sessions being offered by other stores then please post the info below.

I've often wanted to put together a similar sort of thing myself in Lausanne (in English), and I did so last year in Geneva for a few people who work as guides for a bike tour company. Unfortunately, I don't have a location to host such a workshop here, which is what has stopped me from doing so. If you would be interested and/or have ideas of how to solve the location problem, then let me know.

If you want to get really serious about bike maintenance (and you already know the basics) then there are some week-long courses organized by specialist companies; I know of some in the US and UK, but there are probably others in the rest of Europe. You normally get a diploma at the end of these that can help if you want to get a job in bike mechanics, but I believe that many people take them who want to learn for personal reasons as well as professional reasons.