I am fairly new to riding. I've been riding for about 6 years. With the Norton, I've previously owned 4 bikes, three of them Royal Enfields, two of them newer and one about 12 years old. That was a 500 which I had made into a scrambler. That bike was great fun. I traded that for the Norton. The Commando is a bike I've wanted for a long time. I was sad to see the Bullet 500 go. I knew though that getting a 55 year old Norton was going to need an extra level of care and maintenance. Mechanical experience has been limited to basic maintenance, oil changes, spark plug, chain as well as adding/replacing parts such as exhaust, rear shocks, turn signals, nothing drastic. Since I live in an apartment in Brooklyn/NYC, most work is done on the street so I tend to do work on the bike which can be done in a day. I have a garage space in my building where I can do some extended work on the bike but it is quite dark and lacks electrical outlets to plug in any tools. I do use a mechanic for any work that is above my experience, which is most work. The shop, which was 6 miles away just moved. It is over 30 miles away now. So I feel that if I get a little more knowledge and experience to do repairs and maintenance on my own it would be helpful for both my love of the bike and my wallet.
I am slowly acquiring a set of tools for the bike. At the moment, I have a basic set of Whitworth wrenches and some specific tools for the oil and primary chain case inspection caps. I have my regular set of metric wrenches and sockets as well as American SAE.