My mentor in Portland told me to stop torquing by feel and it finally clicked
My old boss from the shop in Portland called me out last month when I was showing him how I snug up stem bolts. He said, "You've been doing this 12 years, why are you still guessing?" I told him I could feel when it was tight enough, but then he had me test my feel on a torque wrench and I was off by almost 3 Nm on one bolt. That tiny gap is exactly why I'd been chasing a creak on my own bike for 6 months and blaming the headset. Now I keep a 5 Nm preset driver on the bench and my wrists thank me. Anyone else have a bad habit their mentor called out that took a number to actually fix?