manmountain

I just got hired as a bike assembler and I could really use some help. After 18 years of mountain biking I just realized that I've just been rigging my bike all these years. After 2 days I've built 5 bikes and I don't think any of them passed. I need to build at least 10 a day by next week. I had planned to go Barnett Bicycle Institute, but this is like getting payed to go to school. It's a sweet opportunity, so I don't want to blow it. The only catch is that I have to start producing really quickly. I've got all the instructions but I could use some tips and tricks to do it faster and more accurately. My biggest problem is adjusting brakes quickly, followed by derailleur adjustments, and wheel truing on the bike. I'm OK on the truing stand, but it's slower and everyone else does it on the bike. I know you use the brake pads as a guide but it's so much harder. Are there any good shortcuts for setting high and low limit screws on the derailleurs. Brakes are giving me fits. I set the pads, then cable tension. The pads always seem to move somehow. Set it again. Set the spring tension. The pads move again, and so on. I'm even struggling with stupid crap sometimes like skewers. What is the easiest way to get them tight quickly anyway? Even adjusting the seat is a pain in the tailbone. Don't even get me started on the stupid reflector screws that won't budge! ugghh.... Anyway, I really want to make this work but I need to improve fast or I'm out. Any tips or tricks on any part of the assembly process would be greatly appreciated. Thanks...
-Struggling newbie

Mondoman

Some ideas, which may or may not help in your situation:

For skewers, the most useful advice I got was to screw them in just to the point where the 1st 90 degrees of QR lever movement is free, with resistance starting just when the lever is pointing out parallel to the skewer.

For truing wheels while on the bike, in this case, I'd leave the brakes for last and use a reference point on the middle of the fork's horseshoe arch (front) and on the middle of the BB/kickstand mount area in back. Once you've got the wheel pretty true, just clamp the V-brakes together on the wheel with your hand or a clamp of some sort, and loosen each pad's bolt one at a time to adjust it to fit parallel with the rim and a mm or so down from the top. Unscrew the barrel adjuster at the brake lever about one turn. Run the brake cable down through the brake's cable clamp, loosen your hold/clamp on the brake to allow the pads to move out a total of 2mm or so, then tighten the cable clamp on the brake. Minor final wheel truing can then be done relative to the brake pads.

If you haven't already, check out the Park Tool website instructions for rear derailleur adjustment.

What sort of bikes are you assembling? All the same model or a variety of models?

ang1sgt

It is not you my friend, but I could and won't work for any shop that does this sort of practice.

Why? Because it encourages shoddy builds, hence the wheels trued in the bike and other practices that are not in line with proper quality builds.

I will give you this advice, try and play back in your mind exactly what you need to do with each build. Do it the same way each and every time you do a bike. The more you do the better you will become. If this is an assembler job at a Big Box place, I wish you well for these bikes are pure garbage and are the bain of this profession.

I would hate to see this shop try and force the same standards for a Trek Madone or Kuota Carbon builds. Whether it is a basic Hybrid or a multi thousand dollar road bike, all bikes need the same good thorough assembly process.

I wish you well! Gain in your experience, learn as you can, and move on and up when you get the chance.

Panthers007

Where do you work? I might open a bike-repair service across the street.

Get what knowledge you can and enjoy Barnett - then quit working for the goons who don't care if a bike is assembled correctly or not. Barnett will teach you the correct way.

nitropowered

10 bikes a day!!! Thats asking for lots of mistakes. My record in a day was 6 bikes out of boxes in an 8 hour day, but that was pretty much with no distractions, no lunch. I was trying to see how many I can build. Pretty much wiped out after that.

top506

Ten bikes a day is pushing it, unless you are working 12 hour days.
One bike per hour of shift time seems to be what I average.
Does your employer use Sutherland build forms? If so just follow all the check boxes on the back. Torque specs will also be printed on the back. It gets easier after the first couple of dozen.
Don't take short cuts for the sake of speed! Make sure that every build is SAFE to ride, even if not perfect.
Top
(326 builds last year)

Wanderer

Nice post, Top.

I would also consider asking if they are aware of the liability they are incurring by pushing shoddy builds.

This is exactly why big box store bikes are such a bain on the industry.

My brother bought a cheap bike from one of them, and I spent a little over two hours adjusting, lubricating, and fitting the bike to him. (included remounting the tires, which were directional!) He then said it was a completely different bike, was now comfortable, and operated sooooooo much better.

Anyone putting these things together, should be doing the same.

Good Luck.

treebound 

It's easy to generalize and jump to conclusions about a shop without knowing their whole process.

I typically unbox and build up one to three bikes an hour, bread&butter bikes and kids bikes for the most part. This does not include Madones and highend bikes whick can take longer to assemble/build and set up. Also some manufacturers or brands build up with less hassle than other ones.

Now, let me add a qualifier before I get jumped on. The bikes all get a test ride check over and a final sales check before customers ride the bikes and before the bikes leave the store. Additionally things change from time to time as management and staffing changes, for example we just got a new service manager (with some background at Barnett) so I expect the processes will change a bit. I'm open to change and am open to positive constructive criticism if it is offered as a growth and improvement comment.

As to the OP I can only offer to look for steps to take to improve efficiency. Open the box and remove the saddle and post and adjust them first, align and tighten the rear reflector, then set it aside. Next remove the goody box and open and unwrap the pedals and other bits and pieces and lay them out on the bench. Next remove the bike from the box and set in upright on the floor next to the workstand, then remove the rubberbands and cable ties holding the handlebars, rotate the forks to allow the front wheel to slip off of the crankarm, then clip the cableties holding the front wheel to the frame and slip off the front wheel and set it behind you. Next grease the seattube and install the seatpost/saddle and tighten it down, then hoist the bike up into the workstand. Finish removing the packing materials from the bike. Insert the stem and align it to the forks, ensure the brake and shifter cables aren't all twisted up and hang the handlebars in front of the forks, then holding the forks you can flip the stem to the upright angle and adjust the headset play and then snug down the stem clamps, then install and align the handlebars. Insert the skewer into the front wheel and install the front wheel onto the bike with the clamp properly adjusted. Next you can verify that the wheel is true and then adjust the brake pads and then the brake cables, then clip the excess cable and install the cable clamp. Next grease the pedal threads and install the pedals, torque the pedals, then torque the bottom bracket and crankarms. Next adjust the front and rear deraileurs. Stick on the shop sticker, hang the dog tag, staple the invoice tag around the non-driveside chainstay, check the tire pressure, and drop it down out of the stand. Drop the seattube down low, mentally go over the bike to ensure you didn't miss anything, mark the bike as assembled in the inventory system and input the s/n, then hang the bike.

That is the thumbnail sketch of my build process. C/f forks, frames, handlebars get appropriate adjustments in the process and proper torques applied as required. Training wheels for kids bikes are also attended to as necessary. As are kickstands, baskets, bells, bike computers, racks, and anything else as necessary. I also ensure any water bottle screws are just snug in the frame so the don't rattle or fall off.

The shop has a checklist for test rides and another one for final sales checkovers.

One to three bikes an hour as a general rule, but some take longer and I build to the needs of the bike and not against the clock. Also my steps are subject to change as requirements or mandates change. YMMV.

treebound 

Let me add this before my post gets dissected:

It was typed in from memory while using a cellphone, so typos and occaisional funny characters are accidental and should not be considered as indicative of my linguistic skills.

Also, quality comes first, quantity is always secondary. Improvement in efficiency and advancement in skills and knowledge will lead to shorter build times. But you should never feel rushed.

geoffvsjeff

+1 as to this being a sketchy shop that is really asking for mistakes. Are you working for a big box? If so, realize that you really aren't getting an education as a mechanic, you are getting an education as doing as cheap a job as possible.

I started out as a builder at a LBS, and my boss would have gotten pissed if we tried cutting corners to build quicker (I am guessing he would have even been annoyed if I had tried truing wheels on the bike instead of taking them off and using a stand).

IMO, you HAVE to learn quality techniques first. This means builds will be slow. It initially would take me a couple of hours to finish one hybrid. This is how it should be. Speed will come with experience. Plus, if you start doing quality builds, it leads to gaining speed without compromising quality. Again, this is how it should be. Even once I had worked for a couple of years and was a more experienced and advanced as a mechanic, I would come in for a 4hr shift, and boss would give me a high end road bike and say, "try to have it done by the time you go home." Did I need four hours? No, putting a time crunch on things tends to hurt quality. If we did need to do a rush job (someone coming in soon and wants to look at some specific bike), then we would pull multiple people to speed things up. Again, don't sacrifice quality.

I also find it weird that it sounds like the OP is building with other, more experienced people, who are not teaching the OP better technique. This is also a big red flag for me. Your co-workers should be your support system, particularly starting out. What gives?

I wish you luck, and see if you can find a better shop. If you explain the situation you are in to a decent LBS manager/owner, they will sympathize and should probably give you good consideration, particularly since it sounds like you understand the fundamentals.

noglider 

I won't trash the shop for wanting you to produce ten bikes a day, but it does seem suspect. It's still worth trying to succeed. Just don't feel bad if you don't, because you'll get a job at a shop that cares more about quality than speed. In the meantime, you can work on your speed.

Sometimes the thing that costs the most time is moving your body. Try to save motion, for instance moving from the crate to the bike. Are you using a stand that holds the bike up in the air? I hope so, as this can reduce your body movements. Pull the bike out of the crate, clamp it in the stand, dump out the rest of the crate under the bike. Keep the required tools right near your workspace.

Also, write out the steps in the order you think you should take them. See if there is any walking between steps, and if so, see if you can reorder some steps.

Can you watch your coworkers and learn how they do things quickly? A STORY: I remember I was working as the sole mechanic in a bike shop. It was winter. To bring in business, we had a loss leader, which was a complete overhaul of a bike at a ridiculously low rate. We got a lot of business that way. Bikes piled up in the shop, queued for days so I could get through all of them. A complete overhaul took me hours. So in the beginning of the spring, my boss hired a new mechanic. I told him what we were doing, and he took a bike to do an overhaul. A few minutes later, he was done. I thought it was impossible. He must have done a lousy job or skipped steps. His hands or body didn't move fast or anything. But somehow, he really did it all, and he did it right. I suspect he had a tiny bunch of shortcuts with his hands that even he couldn't describe.

The lesson is that there's no substitute for experience. You will get faster, for sure. Whether you will manage to do so by next week is something we can't predict, but it won't be for naught, because if they fire you, another shop will hire you. The job market is good for bike mechanics.

LarDasse74

I worked in bike shops for years and years and years. I spent quite a bit of time during the last few years teaching others to build bikes.

The most I could do out of boxes in an 8 hour day was seven. If I worked late I could maybe get eight done, but I would probably find many problems with the last few if I checked the next morning. The last place I worked also sold many custom assembled bikes (built from a bare frame, a pair of machine-built wheels, and a box of parts) and I could get four done on a good day.

Every bike, everywhere I worked, got built then checked by someone else before leaving - usually as a final 'prep' before the customer picked them up. I would guess that each bike from a box, in total, took 1.5 hours to get completely ready to leave the shop.

Ten in a day is asking for problems. Earn your money and find a new place to work. Repairs are much more rewarding to do than assemblies, but learning proper assembly can teach you what how a bike is supposed to work under ideal conditions, and this knowledge can be transferred to repairs. You might also get experience working under pressure and exhausting monotony for low pay, which will make your eventual rise to the level of 'shop mechanic' seem all the more rewarding.

Do your best... and good luck!

Dan Burkhart 

An old German gent I worked with in my younger days used to say " Ve git firsht gut und den ve git fasht.
That said, no matter how good you get, I don't accept that 10 out of the box builds in a normal shift is reasonable, unless we are talking about single speed coaster brake kids bikes.

manmountain

Just so you know, it is a real bike shop. One of the biggest in Minnesota. Bikes have to pass a 100 point check list with 95%. Any Major problems or safety issues are an automatic fail. Wheels must be trued to within 1 mm, and yes, they want me to do it on the bike. I am about 4 times faster on the true stand right now though. They assign points to different bikes based on the time it takes to build. They pay 4.50 a point and expect us to get 3 points per hour. The best assemblers there build 12-15 bikes per shift or more. They can build an average mountain bike in 20-30 minutes. An average of 10 bikes per day is the minimum level they want us to get to, which would be about 45 minutes a bike. It is a grueling job, there is no doubt about it, but I did a little better today. I finally built a bike that passed and I built one in an hour. I also struggled with a cheap bike that wasn't cooperating for a little over 2 hours though. They act like they are going to fire me any minute if I don't get up to speed right now, but I think they are just trying to push me hard. We'll see though. I have serious doubts about being able to build a bike in 30 minutes by next week though. It takes me 6 minutes just to get the bike out of the box and get all the crap cut off it for crying out loud. Brakes are still my biggest problem. I need to keep adjusting them over and over. It's ridiculous sometimes. I know how to set the derailleurs now, but sometimes that doesn't make it an easier. Even the manager who is apparently the fastest and most accurate builder they've ever had, struggled to get the this POS bike shifting correctly, and in the end it was just barely functional. I finally got a drill, so the stupid reflectors won't brake my hands anymore trying to put them on. I think I'll need to keep improving every day for a month to get up to speed. Wish me luck...

ls01

bonchance.

vettefrc2000

I would not want to work at a hack shop like that.

manmountain

They are helping me. Like I said, it's like going to school. I would probably go through the training with out pay if I had too. The assembly manager is a little crude, well the whole crew is really, but It sure beats those uptight retail types who make you sit through an "attitudinal beliefs" seminar and make you paste on a fake smile all the time. And yes, I hate truing on the bike. I have to spin the wheel over and over and I'm never sure if I've got the right spoke. I can only see the bad spot when the wheel is spinning fast, so I can't stop it in the right place. If I turn the wheel slow I can't pinpoint the bad spot in the rim. It's frustrating. If it's real bad it's obvious and easy to find, but most of the wheels only need minor adjustments. In the stand I can true them up real quick. I don't think they are sacrificing quality though. If we don't build good bikes we don't get payed for them, I think. Not quite sure how that works yet.

"IMO, you HAVE to learn quality techniques first. This means builds will be slow. It initially would take me a couple of hours to finish one hybrid."

I built a couple that took 1 1/2 hours, and another that took an hour, except for the true, which was my first attempt on the bike. How long did it take you to learn to build them faster?

manmountain

What is hack about it? Truing on the bike?

manmountain

"The lesson is that there's no substitute for experience. You will get faster, for sure. Whether you will manage to do so by next week is something we can't predict, but it won't be for naught, because if they fire you, another shop will hire you. The job market is good for bike mechanics."

I hope so, I've been unemployed for a year and 1/2. I think they're just telling me that crap to push me. The old guy right across from me said he took 6 months to get to the speed he is at, and he's been there 5 years.

treebound 

By paying 4.50 a point do you mean they pay you based on points or by the hour? If it is $4.50 per point with 3 points per hour then you're looking at $13.50/hour which ain't too bad for a grunt level assembler -- relatively speaking. But if they are paying you by the piece/bike then those problem bikes will break you unless you can toss them aside for the hourly employees. I've heard some of the x-mart stores contract out their bike assembly on a $xbike basis.

Look at the tools the others are using. Tools cost money but can also save time, racheting boxend wrenches are one example.

You shouldn't have to be readjusting the brakes, might be worth it to swap a 6-pack of some beverage to one of the better brake guys there in exchange for some offtime training in technique and methods.

Wheel truing on the bike isn't bad if you only have to eyeball it within a mm or so, and it sounds like they probably just give the wheels a spin to eyeball them during the checkover (I could be wrong though).

I'd be real interested in seeing their 100 point check over list, I'm also curious what shop this is. PM me if you can, but don't loose your job over it if they consider their check-over list as proprietary. It sounds a little like a list someone here had who was in a different store location and who was trained at one of the bike mechanic institutes, that plan didn't fly too well when they spent more time checking over the built bike than it took to assemble it.

Gook luck with your progress. Keep an ear open while visiting other shops in your area and get a feel for their opinions of the wrenches that come from your shop, always good to know where your next gig might be.

I hope your shop at least gives you a discount on tools and supplies, something like cost or cost+10%. Does each mechanic there need their own torque wrenches, or are those items shared and shop maintained?

Anyway, good luck.

noglider 

On brakes: hold the brake shoe in position with an adjustable wrench, and tighten the nut with another wrench.

MrPhil

That you are expected to do 10 "quality" builds a day. That's what's hack about it.

Dan Burkhart 

Yikes! Those numbers make my head spin. What bike brands does this shop carry that has so few build quality issues out of the box that you can attain those targets. I mean, I have had some brands and models that had consistently low issues, and other models within the same brands that had consistently high levels of stuff wrong, like bearings over tight, wheels out of true, etc. etc.
Those guys must be supermechanics or something.

Agent Cooper

I don't work in a shop, so forgive me if this is a dumb question, but I just have to ask: Where are you putting all these bikes?

You're expected to make at least 10 bikes a day. Every day? How many other assemblers work with you?
Your post sounds like there's at least one other person doing this maybe more.

Even if there's only three of you, that's at least 30 bikes a day. 150 bikes a week. Is this shop moving that many bikes per day? Why the push to assemble so many bikes so fast?

Giant salesfloor? Big warehouse? Really high sales volume?

MrPhil

They are in Minnesota. Short cycling season, got to sell bikes while you can. Minnesota is why I live in Oregon.