Bike maintenance learning

[Kempstonian]

btw I can also recommend getting an old bike and pulling it apart to see how things work (I get bikes from a local scrap merchant). Better that than playing around with the bike you need use regularly. Last week I picked up two cheepish MTBs (an Apollo FS26 and a Raleigh Manic) for a tenner the pair - and all they need is recabling, brake shoes and a good clean. You learn a lot from working on bikes where it doesn't matter if you get it wrong!

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

Last week I picked up two cheepish MTBs (an Apollo FS26 and a Raleigh Manic) for a tenner the pair - and all they need is recabling, brake shoes and a good clean. You learn a lot from working on bikes where it doesn't matter if you get it wrong!

Agree that tinkering is the best way of learning about bikes - it's what we all did when we were kids. In fact I find it really weird when adults who ride bikes don't know anything about maintaining them. It makes me wonder who fixed their bikes when they were youngsters!
However, I would only regard either of the two bikes mentioned above as parts donors best used to harvest things like wheels and chainsets from, to keep other 26" MTB's running on the cheap. Low-end suspension MTB's will never feature in my fleet and I would not wish an FS26 or anything similar, on my worst enemy.
Cheap secondhand stuff is an ideal way to enjoy your cycling for peanuts, but I strongly advise anyone doing this to stick to fully rigid frames for riding bikes and only use the boingy bouncers for harvesting parts from.

 

[vickster]

Agree that tinkering is the best way of learning about bikes - it's what we all did when we were kids.

It makes me wonder who fixed their bikes when they were youngsters!.

1. No we didn’t
2. Bike shop

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

No kid I grew up with would dream of taking their bike to a shop for repair, even if they had the money. Which mostly they didn't. We'd go in there for things like replacement brake blocks, spokes and axles then fit them ourselves at home. I reckon the bike shop did more trade in parts over the counter for DIY fitment than it did in selling bikes or servicing them.

 

[Smudge]

Same here, myself and all my mates had to repair/maintain our bikes ourselves. If we didn't, they would've just stayed in the shed broken and unuseable. I never even got a brand new bike until i was around 12 or 13. This was certainly the norm for a lot of kids in the 60's & 70's.
I'm sure there were better off parents that would pay a lbs to do this work, or possible just replace their kids bikes regularly. But that certainly wasn't my world, or any of my mates i hung around with.

 

[Reynard]

My dad used to do all the mechanical stuff here, but an incident where I ended up with an absence of brakes at a rather inopportune moment, encouraged me that it was probably much safer to do basic maintenance myself...

I use my old Emmelle Leopard 10 MTB to teach myself how to do the stuff I've not tackled before.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

I learnt as a kid with my parents showing me initially what to do. Seemed to spend many a time removing and refitting cranks with new cotter pins. Can't think why as the mileage back then wouldn't have worn them out.

 

[8mph]

As others have said, you can pick up bikes from the tip and tinker around. Just be aware that unseizing rusted parts can take a toll on your tools. (unless your using lump hammers and scaffold poles )

 

[vickster]

My dad used to do all the mechanical stuff here, but an incident where I ended up with an absence of brakes at a rather inopportune moment, encouraged me that it was probably much safer to do basic maintenance myself...

I use my old Emmelle Leopard 10 MTB to teach myself how to do the stuff I've not tackled before.

My whole family are as mechanically disinterested as me. Time to do other stuff is more precious than the cost of paying others

 

[Reynard]

My whole family are as mechanically disinterested as me. Time to do other stuff is more precious than the cost of paying others

In this case, it's not disinterested, but inept. Plus the motivation to do stuff due to a lack of funds.

Me, I trained as a mechanical engineer...

 

[Skanker]

I learnt cycle and motorcycle maintenance in Wandsworth Prison, anyone accepted as long as you are male, 3 meals a day for free, bed, tv, some company so you don’t get bored in the evening and they even give you £11 a week for turning up to class! Bargain!

 

[Racing roadkill]

With the increasing proliferation of Di2 ( other e shift stuff is available) and e-bikes, a lot of the ‘simple’ stuff, isn’t quite so ‘simple’ anymore. We are getting towards the sorts of ‘sealed unit’ shenanigans, which afflicts cars increasingly.

 

[Pedropete]

Some modern components and standards are astonishingly unintuitive, with even bike shops getting it wrong more often than they’d care to admit. Which is not to say you shouldn’t have a go yourself, you absolutely should, within reason.

Don’t strip your bike and plan to rebuild it as a baptism of fire as all that’ll happen is you’ll be without a bike until you can think of a sufficiently face-saving excuse to tell your LBS when you inevitably have to take it to them in a collection of oily boxes and plastic bags. In general...

• DO start small and try jobs as they need doing.
• DO look at Park Tool’s online tutorials, they‘re really good
• DO invest in a copy of Park’s Big Blue Bicycle Maintenance Guide, it too is really good
• DON’T buy expensive bike-brand general tools (Alan keys, spanner’s, sockets and drivers etc.) - buy ‘em from the Halfords advance range when they’re on offer instead
• DO buy good quality specialist tools (crank-pullers, cassette spanner & whip, pedal spanner, chain splitters etc.) from the bike brands (Park, Unior, Pedros, Feedback, etc.) - shop around, read reviews
• If you’re working on shimano derailleurs, DO buy a JIS #2 screwdriver off eBay or Amazon to avoid lunching the cross-headed limit screws (they ain’t Philips or pozi!!!)
• DO buy a bike work-stand, preferably a reasonable quality one that can cope with occasional use as a wash-station
• DO write really assertive and prescriptive/proscriptive lists for anyone asking about basic maintenance once you’ve nailed a few simple fixes yourself... it’s a bit of a giggle*

*I’m actually reasonably competent on a good day, according to some people, mostly me...

 

[keithmac]

My dad used to do all the mechanical stuff here, but an incident where I ended up with an absence of brakes at a rather inopportune moment, encouraged me that it was probably much safer to do basic maintenance myself...

I use my old Emmelle Leopard 10 MTB to teach myself how to do the stuff I've not tackled before.

I had an Emmelle Leopard 10 as well!, stripped it down to the frame for a repaint when I was 10 or 11.

 

[keithmac]

A good old fashioned book covering bike maintenance, one you don't mind having next to bike whilst working on it, with dirty hands.

https://www.waterstones.com/book/zi...d-bike-maintenance/lennard-zinn/9781937715373

Containers for placing any bits you take off such as bolts. Nothing worse than dropping a bolt or part on the floor then not being able to find it to put back together .

Take photos as you go for anything that looks moderately complex. It'll help you reassemble later. For instance not sure which way round a brake block fits? Take a photo before you remove the existing one...

I started keeping old margarine and butter tubs a while back, they're a godsend when you need to strip something down and they stack neatly as well.

Nothing worse than putting a part down and losing it..