Working on your own bike

[rydabent]

Some would have your believe that a bicycle is a hugely complicated machine, and you should always take it to a bike shop. I assure you that it is not. For anyone that grew up on a farm, they are quite simple. And then there are guys like me that worked on office machines. I worked on what was a really large selectric typewriter, the IBM Composer that had 5000 parts, so for me, and bike is a super simple machine. And believe it or not, one ink jet machine had adjustments so fine, we had to mount a small microscope to make the adjustments down to one thousand of an inch.

 

[Paulus]

Whilst it is very true that a bike is a simple machine, I have been taking bikes apart and putting them back together again since I was 11 years old.
Some people really aren't mechanical and even the simplest of repairs or servicing is daunting and beyond them.
Di 12 and other electronic shifting is baffling to me.

 

[Dadam]

I work with a keyboard and mouse, but I'm fairly mechanically minded having shot and fiddled with target airguns for 4 decades so I can manage hex keys, pick up an understanding how things work, and I usually have enough mechanical sympathy to torque up bolts without stripping threads and avoid cross threading.

They're not complicated in themselves but as a relative newbie to them the most confusing aspect is the ridiculous number of different standards (bottom brackets, wheels, tyres, hubs, shifters, brakes etc etc). The next most confusing (or more accurately arcane) is the vast array of weird and wonderful tools.

 

[Slick]

We all have our good points and bad points. I used to earn a living dangling 200 feet above the North Sea erecting scaffolding under the heli deck that some would have found daunting but was just bread and butter to me. I totally get why some people just decide to pay someone to return their beloved stead to someone else to do a far better job than they would manage as its like getting new trainers when you were a kid, you can go much faster after your machine has had a good service.

 

[Ajax Bay]

Some would have your believe that a bicycle is a hugely complicated machine, and you should always take it to a bike shop. I assure you that it is not. . . . . for me, [a] bike is a super simple machine

So to support that strawman and taking into account your audience on
Bicycle Mechanics & Repairs : do share your maintenance experience with:

• Upwrongs
• Di2
• tubeless
• disc brakes (optional extra: hydraulics)
• internal cabling
• pressfit bottom brackets
• cottered cranks

Which do you think is the least complicated?

 

[Paulus]

So to support that strawman and taking into account your audience on
Bicycle Mechanics & Repairs : do share your maintenance experience with:

• Upwrongs
• Di2
• tubeless
• disc brakes
• internal cabling
• pressfit bottom brackets
• cottered cranks

Which do you think is the least complicated?

I've just looked up what an Upwrong is.
Never heard that term before.
Everyday is a learning day.

 

[CAESAR AVGVSTVS]

I’m a carpenter and as I kid I was stripping down car engines and rebuilding them.
The other month I spent half a day trying every trick in the book to stop my brake pads rubbing on my Specialised Tarmac to no joy. Took it to my bike mechanic and went to work for the day. Picked up the bike the next day all fixed. That cost me £20. All it needed doing was to tape the brake levers tightly shut over night. I never knew that and it saved me a heap of time and stress and money.
It’s all about knowledge as well as being a decent mechanic👍

 

[biggs682]

They are simple but can also be challenging

 

[iandg]

A lot of bike maintenance is having the right tools. I own specialist tools for head set press/removal and spanners, cartridge and external bottom bracket replacement, cassette and freewheel replacement, and cone spanners. I worked in a bike shop on and off from 1974 to 1984 so have done most things, but where I worked there was a full time wheel mechanic so, apart from lacing and handing over for him to tension and true, I never learnt wheel mechanics. I can usually make adjustments to "get me home" but don't have a wheel jig so generally take wheels to an expert.

I've done basic work on my mates ICE trike (changing cassettes, setting up gears) but have never worked with press fit bottom brackets or Di2.

Cotter pins were the invention of Satan.

 

[DogmaStu]

When I first started out as a teenager in the 1980's, learning to maintain my own bikes incl. building wheels was a matter of essential economics; I had to, I couldn't afford to pay anyone else. Once Sponsored, it was different.

When in Portugal, I support the local bike shops, at 10-20 euros for labour for most jobs it isn't an issue. In South Africa recently, I had an MTB tubeless tyre rip badly and the local bike shop replaced the tyre and gave the bike a full service - brakes, suspension etc - for less than the cost of the same tyre alone in the UK!

My only experience of using a UK bike shop resulted in a £70 labour bill - the cost of the tools I'd need to do it myself. So I bought them.

I service my own Di2, eTap, BB's, Tubeless etc in the UK now on road, gravel and MTB bikes. None are difficult when you have the correct tools and I'm useless at DIY.

 

[presta]

The other month I spent half a day trying every trick in the book to stop my brake pads rubbing on my Specialised Tarmac to no joy. Took it to my bike mechanic and went to work for the day. Picked up the bike the next day all fixed. That cost me £20.

The problem with that is that you don't learn anything other than how to be dependent on others. I've had so much trouble with workmen, if I can't do a job myself I'd rather leave non-essential ones undone than hire someone to do them.

don't have a wheel jig

I made my own.

 

[Dogtrousers]

Thing is, maintenance is a tedious ball ache that takes up time when I'd much rather be riding my bike.

I spend more than enough time doing basic cleaning, checking and lubrication. Replacement of consumables like brake blocks, chains, tyres etc I do myself.

But any decent sized jobs go to the LBS. They'll probably do it better than a ham-fisted idiot like me, they're only 15 minutes walk away and they've never let me down. I can do things like BB replacement and re-cabling and the like myself if I have to, but generally I don't.

Anything spoke-related is mandatory LBS.

Anything on my old Dawes (spokes excepted) I'm happy to do myself. I even partially enjoy it. It's c.1985 and has no mystery components like thread less headset, sealed bearings, fancy BB, indexed gears. If it's in Richard's Bicycle Book: I don't mind spending an hour or so on it

 

[Drago]

I do it all myself. The 15 minutes to the nearest LBS (and home, and then back again to collect it, and home again) is sufficient time to do pretty much any repair. I could lace a wheel in that hour.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Thing is, maintenance is a tedious ball ache that takes up time when I'd much rather be riding my bike.

The tedious maintenance keeps your bike running sweet and enables you to be on the road. Plus it if you tackle stuff early it doesn’t become tedious as it is quick to sort out. It gets tedious when you’ve left something too long and it’s seized / on the way out due to lack of maintenance etc.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

I do it all myself. The 15 minutes to the nearest LBS (and home, and then back again to collect it, and home again) is sufficient time to do pretty much any repair. I could lace a wheel in that hour.

You can also lace your steering wheel in that time.