On Friday, 6 December 2019 09:40:39 UTC, Brian Reay wrote:
That kind of €˜tinkering by children is pretty well a thing of the past.
....
Without wishing to be racist etc, back in the 80s I was working in a
developing country on some military equipment along side some Americans.

OTOH in developing countries tinkering is much more prevalent and if the soldiers *had* had a bicycle as children [1] they would probably have known how to change the tyre, patch the inner tube, fix the chain etc and even weld the frame with a couple of wires from the light socket and a home-made transformer.

Owain



[1] Yes, I do mean one bike, many children :-)