Posts
60
Joined
10/18/2011
Location
Roseville, CA
US
Edited Date/Time
1/27/2012 2:14pm
so obviously we are all here because we love the sport and it is our hobby.
well for me its like my livelyhood, grew up racing till i was 19; now im 20 and entering the world of trying to find out what i want to do for the rest of my life. a lot of us have dreamed or became proffesional motocross races and whatnot but that time has passed for me. so the next thing that i have considered is being a mechanic or eventually running my own shop... as in sales, service and parts all in one.
now to the point i have heard many good things about MMI in arizona and i have heard many bad things about going to the school and not really getting a true grasp of what being a motorcycle technician is all about. i find that hard to believe since MMI is a factory backed school and they have a lot of connection in ama supercross. so does anyone know first hand or have any input on any of this?
i have also spoke with the recruiter type guy that goes to houses and talks to parents... but its hard to listen to someone who gets paid by how many kids he gets to enroll in the school. and i DO know how much it will cost.
well for me its like my livelyhood, grew up racing till i was 19; now im 20 and entering the world of trying to find out what i want to do for the rest of my life. a lot of us have dreamed or became proffesional motocross races and whatnot but that time has passed for me. so the next thing that i have considered is being a mechanic or eventually running my own shop... as in sales, service and parts all in one.
now to the point i have heard many good things about MMI in arizona and i have heard many bad things about going to the school and not really getting a true grasp of what being a motorcycle technician is all about. i find that hard to believe since MMI is a factory backed school and they have a lot of connection in ama supercross. so does anyone know first hand or have any input on any of this?
i have also spoke with the recruiter type guy that goes to houses and talks to parents... but its hard to listen to someone who gets paid by how many kids he gets to enroll in the school. and i DO know how much it will cost.
1st you will get out of MMI what you put into it
2nd they have all the tools and manuals but nobody can prepare you for the everyday challenge of repairing machines that have actually been used and abused. Nothing beats experience and as long as you learn and don't make the same mistakes over and over you will do fine.
3rd it's expensive and they bs they sell you on making 60k a year is a pipe dream, expect to make $12 or so to start and work your way up.
4th being a Mechanic is a continuous learning experience be prepared for a lifetime of new stuff and embrace the challenge, don't do it and your career will die a slow ugly death.
Lastly it's a good school if you can afford it or have some backing but don't wreck yourself financially to do it, it might take longer but an entry level job at a local shop might be your best answer.
Go to college for the highest paying job possible! If you can't buy toys how are you going to play?
Don't go to college and major in something like English or Sociology unless you have a connect with a corporation that just wants someone with a college degree. Or you have rich parents and just want to go to college and fuck off..
If you're going to go into the trades go for HVAC or plumbing... motorcycle mechanics dont make shit. I knew someone who went to one of these bogus for profit tech schools and he went into carpentry, so you know..he could make a living wage. $12 an hour is good if you're 18 years old and live at home with no bills.
if you want to be a grease monkey and get paid, be a diesel tech. My best friend growing up works at a ford dealership and he is doing very well for himself while nearly everyone else i went to highschool with who got good grades and went to college are now working shit jobs because they have no skills and make $10 hour..some are even occupying wall street
If you have your heart set on MMI, you need to get a job at a bike shop for a year or so and pick up on as much knowledge as you can before heading off to school. Things will make a lot more sense when you have a real world understanding of how they will be applied in the workplace.
The Shop
for the most part though i cannot stand sitting in a college classroom. i do it right now at the local community college and it just bores the hell out of me. nor do a lot of the requirements out there for a degree make any sense to me. a.k.a learning calculus even though most people will never use a calculus equation in their lifetime. thats why i have considered going to a trade school such as MMI.... on top of that working on my motocross bikes is honestly fun for me.
and here where i live in nor cal motocross is pretty big.. like 6 local tracks and tons of family owned dealerships, so i dont see why starting my own shop and or dealership couldnt or wouldnt happen. and yes i do realize that our sport is basically in the pooper finacially and job market wise. but is MMI reallly as prestigious as everyone says it is? and i DO KNOW WHAT HARD WORK IS. currently i am a grease monkey for the most part
Todd (MMITopTech) might be able to give you some insight.
I've had 2 MMI graduates that sucked ass. One could'nt even change fork seals. He told me the forks just fell apart in class, so he had know way of knowing how to do it.
My son went to MMI in Phoenix, straight out of HS. He was a 4.0 student in HS, and applied himself the same way at MMI, and came away the star pupil, (and the youngest), in all his sections. The instructors brought their personal stuff for him to work on, since he was always finished with all his projects way ahead of schedule.
He has a strong mechanical aptitude, and he was always as interested in working on the bikes as much as riding them. He did most of the work rebuilding his PW50 top end at 6 years old, with little more help from me than installing wrist pin circlips, and squeezing rings while he dropped the cylinder on.
He works as a technician at a good size metro area dealer, and when I met his Service Manager, he shook my hand, saying it was the best decision he ever made, hiring Nick, and that he is consistently their top producing technician.
So, at the ripe old age of "just turned 21" he is doing pretty well. BUT, he is smart enough to realize that this is what he is doing to help pay his way through College, because he doesn't want to be doing this the rest of his life. He knows his back is gonna wear out way before he gets rich doing this. He loves working on bikes, but at the pace he's working, he knows he's not gonna love it forever.
where do all the big time motocross mechanics come out of? i know that josh hansens mechanic is a MMI graduate.
what about mike gosselaar. ricky and ryan dungeys ex mechani does anyone know where he started way back when.
Also the economy is killing all the bike shops. Look at Honda of Troy and a bunch of others that closed!
Passion, attention to detail, mechanical knowledge, excellent memory, studying other teams bikes, hark work and prior riding experience is what makes a good moto wrench.
But I should add that, I never had any intention of ever working in a dealership or starting my own shop.
Pit Row
Two years at Wyo Tech and one kid didn't know the difference between 80 grit and 180 grit sandpaper.Obviously they both had 80 in them.....LMAO
Two year at TSTI/TSTC in Texas and one of their graduates who happened to have a certificate for Advanced Steering and Suspension removed a front strut from a car, sat it on the floor and zapped the nut off the top of it. Holy shit, he wanted to kill me after the coil spring barely missed his head. Just a guess that Advanced Steering and Suspension didn't cover the proper use of the $600.00 strut compressor mounted on the wall in my shop. Or maybe he missed that day?
Ask the MMI recruit the question I asked.
I seriously knew way more about motocross than 95% of the teachers. But I will say that I didn't know much about 4 strokes when I went cause, everything was 2 strokes in moto. I did learn a lot more than I knew coming in.
@newmann some of the things you say i can see happening because i work as a manager at americas tire/discount tire and i work with retards that would do shit like that. but after training as you speak of it seems like the people you have talked about have serious issues when it comes to working on anything
Are you Ddavis?
IMO Kawi you should learn how to rebuild suspension before going, its a piece of cake just read the manual if you have trouble.
I'd just work if I was you and try to figure out what you want to do outside of bikes...why turn something you like into a job?
Learning Calculus may seem stupid (im not a math person, at all but i know how corporate hiring works) so if you can get through these tough classes it does show you're intelligent.
That being said...you need to look into the future because you aren't going to be able to do manual labor for the rest of your life and the pay isn't going to be there either unless you make your own job/start a business.
I'm going through the same thing you are as well...but MMI isn't a prestigous school at all. Even most State colleges aren't considered prestigious.
Also..don't take out loans because you don't want to wind up like the liberal douches in NYC "occupying wall street"
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