Parents. Check the Important Bits.

[Hugh Manatee]

Been to the land of my birth (South Devon) this weekend. Ma and Pa were doing well and looking forwards to their annual visit to Seathwaite in the Lakes. This is a tiny place with equally tiny roads so they tend to take their old mountain bikes and use those instead to go to shop and pub.

I knew I had to take the work stand to repair the gears on their friend's bike. This turned out to be two broken twist grip shifters that some ham fisted buffoon had massively over tightened.

I was able to source some news ones and whilst picking them up dad also got some new brake blocks for me to fit. Joy! Cantilever brakes are not my favourite.

Still, I thought, dad has this weird fetish for polishing and washing his frame so at least it'll be clean!
The clean frame made it even more odd that he didn't spot this:

Younger viewers may not recognise a Shimano straddle wire thingy. Just the two strands of wire holding on. Obviously, I didn't have a spare and the LBS can have the dubious pleasure of fitting, adjusting and toeing in the cantilever brakes!

 

[Globalti]

Some people just don't register potential problems, it's why the car MOT test was introduced.

I had a colleague who once gave me a lift to work. First time she braked I heard metal on metal so I told her to go to a garage that day for new pads and possibly new discs too. Many weeks later she turned up late for work, upset and chuntering about the car making a horrible noise and some round bits of metal dropping out from underneath!

 

[Drago]

Fixing and setting up cantis is so easy there's no excuse for even the most mechanically inept rider to keep there bike safe. Why endanger yourself and others over somethingnso simple?

 

[MontyVeda]

Fixing and setting up cantis is so easy there's no excuse for even the most mechanically inept rider to keep there bike safe. Why endanger yourself and others over somethingnso simple?

You'll have to make an instructional video... i find them a right faff.

 

[Rowano]

Fixing and setting up cantis is so easy there's no excuse for even the most mechanically inept rider to keep there bike safe. Why endanger yourself and others over somethingnso simple?

I always found cantis a right PITA to work with. Always felt you needed about 3 additional hands to set them. That's not to say there's an excuse to not have safe functioning brakes - if you're not able to do them yourself, ask your LBS to check them (or Drago )

 

[keithmac]

I check my sons bike and he goes round it with me so he's got a good idea of what to look for.

 

[mikeymustard]

I check my sons bike and he goes round it with me so he's got a good idea of what to look for.

I went out for a ride with my [25 year old] son earlier. He very keenly got our bikes out of the garage so as I went upstairs to change I told him his bike might need some air in the tyres cos it hasn't been used since July.
"ok" he says, "where's the pump?"
Knowing how unmechanical - and ham-fisted - he is, and having a vision of him snapping the valve in two, I shouted,
"Be really gentle with it".
Two seconds later he calls up the stairs,
"Is the thing that holds the air in supposed to come apart like this?"
Oh ffffff...flip I think. He comes upstairs holding, in two parts, the valve cap! I have no idea how he did it!

Does this make me a bad father?

 

[Vantage]

Erin has recently started going out on her bike with her friends and usually comes back telling me that her friends look at her bike with envy. I bought it from Decathlon 3 years ago for £150. It's no Islabike, I just look after it.
Some of the bikes these kids are riding though...bloody hell...they're death traps.
I get that many can't afford good bikes due to financial difficulties etc, but how can they let their most irreplaceable of things, their kids, ride flat tyred, poorly or non braked rust heaps round the estate? I just don't get it.

 

[snorri]

I get that many can't afford good bikes due to financial difficulties etc, but how can they let their most irreplaceable of things, their kids, ride flat tyred, poorly or non braked rust heaps round the estate? I just don't get it.

Our first step at a school cycle training session was to check over the bikes the pupils were to use, only one bike failed, it was a shocker. None of the pupils had taken helmets to the session, except the one with the dangerous bike.

 

[tom73]

I remember my dad checking my bike over before/ or after most rides. I'd watch and ask question and help with the basic stuff. I only had to say something did not feel right and he'd get looking can still see him now all these year's later
Guess it's a sign of the time's he was of an age that most lad's had a bike and only way to fix them was you did it. Plus his job meant he was more than able to hold a spanner. Many now never get the experience of having to do thing stuff let alone getting your hand's in the grease
Now years later I find myself going solo with repairs, how bikes have moved on and the stall on the market with everything you ever needed for a bike long gone.

I guess we should at least welcome the fact they let little Tarquin out the house. Be it only in the leafy none gated communities they call new housing developments.

 

[keithmac]

That's the thing, I was the only person that worked on my bikes as a kid and that's how I learned how they worked (by taking them to bits and putting them back together!).

Same with the motocycles/ computers etc.

My lad had fixed a few of his mates bikes while out from what I've taught him so hopefully his mates will learn what's dangerous and what isn't!.

It doesn't stop with bicycles either, some of the deathtrap scooters we get in at work and the riders can barely speak let alone do a pre ride (or any) safety check!.

They'll think nothing of spending £200 on a go faster exhaust but can't afford to change the bald back tyre...

I remember my dad checking my bike over before/ or after most rides. I'd watch and ask question and help with the basic stuff. I only had to say something did not feel right and he'd get looking can still see him now all these year's later
Guess it's a sign of the time's he was of an age that most lad's had a bike and only way to fix them was you did it. Plus his job meant he was more than able to hold a spanner. Many now never get the experience of having to do thing stuff let alone getting your hand's in the grease
Now years later I find myself going solo with repairs, how bikes have moved on and the stall on the market with everything you ever needed for a bike long gone.

I guess we should at least welcome the fact they let little Tarquin out the house. Be it only in the leafy none gated communities they call new housing developments.

 

[Hugh Manatee]

I should add that the cable had stayed together and wasn't all frayed out like that. Soon as I grabbed it it didn't feel right though.

Do you remember back in the day a lot of us used to leave the reflector bracket on the bike? The reflector itself was taken off but the bracket remained. Everyone seemed to have a mate who's friend/relation's brake cable had snapped sending the straddle wire down into the tyre locking the wheel and sending the unfortunate rider into a Superman flight towards oblivion.

Of course, you didn't personally know anyone it had happened to but, all those mate's friends couldn't be wrong.....