The last bike I owned which never needed third party servicing skills,was my 1991 ZZR1100. There was bodywork to remove,but once that was done,gaining access to carbs or valve clearances was very straightforward. No cams out to change shims,just slide the rocker to one side and you're in.
I knew that bike inside out and enjoyed spannering it. It was lovingly built from scratch (ha) as a write off.
The bikes I've had after that have all been increasingly more awkward to work on. It's not so much that the tech has changed,for me it's needing hands like a spider monkey to get at anything. That's when I lost interest in anything beyond basic servicing.
Even getting the sparkplugs out on my ZX10R was an endurance test. I paid a bloke to do them and the valve clearances. That would never have happened in the past.
Personally,I think I've let that side of biking go. I just do the basics,which quite often is all that's required,then pay for work I can't be arsed to do.
So to answer the Count's question another way,yes there is an element of biking that has been diminished. Knowing your own bike inside out and never needing another to do work,was always my mode of operation. My bike was my bike and I kept it right. I only used dealers for spares. So it's not so much the electronics which bother me,it's the inaccessibility resulting from the compact nature of modern bikes.
However,having blathered on,I'd rather put up with losing the dirty hands than forever ride bikes that handled like my 70s wobblers,so I suppose I have no right to yap.
Look what they're having to do with new models as their customers die off.
