Multiple choice (longer text)

People often ask me why I spend my Saturdays in a small workshop instead of relaxing at home. The answer is simple: I have an unusual hobby that feels like a job sometimes. I volunteer at a community bike workshop, and my friends jokingly call me a “bicycle doctor”. I’m not a real mechanic, and I definitely don’t wear a white coat, but I do help broken bikes return to the streets.

I first visited the workshop last year after my old bike chain snapped on the way to college. I expected someone to fix it for me in five minutes. Instead, a volunteer named Marta handed me a tool and said, “I’ll show you, but you’ll do it.” At the beginning I felt nervous, because there were so many strange names: derailleur, spokes, brake pads. I was also embarrassed when I couldn’t even remove a wheel. Still, Marta didn’t laugh. She just waited, and somehow that made me calmer.

After a few weeks, I started going there regularly. Most people who come are students, delivery riders, or parents with children’s bikes. Some only need air in their tyres, but others arrive with a bike that looks like it has been in a storm. My favourite moments are not when I finish a perfect repair, but when someone’s face changes from worried to relieved. Once, a delivery rider told me his bike was “his whole salary”. I didn’t know what to say, so I tightened his brakes twice.

Of course, it’s not always easy. Sometimes a repair takes an hour and still doesn’t work, and I feel useless. The workshop can also get noisy, especially when three people ask for help at the same time. But even then, I prefer being there to scrolling on my phone at home. When I leave, my hands are dirty and my back hurts, yet I feel lighter.

Now I’m saving money for a better set of tools, and I’m learning to explain things more clearly to beginners. I still make mistakes, but I’ve stopped hiding them. Fixing bikes has taught me something surprising: you don’t need to be an expert to be helpful—you just need to stay patient and keep trying.