jmeb

This spring I've had a number of bike repair firsts as I prep rides for friends and colleagues. In this month alone:

1. My first truly stuck seatpost. Weeks of soaking with various products. Bench vices. Pipe wrenches and cheater bars. Finally succeeded with two cuts with a hacksaw. In the future I will be quicker to the hacksaw. 2 weeks of commuting loss for a friends isn't worth the 15 dollar seatpost.

2. Fixing a bent (CroMo) fork. Not your typical "head-on" collision and bent backwards, but instead skewed noticeably to one side. Misalgined dropouts, and a spacing of 110mm to start. It took a few hours with an FFS-2 (Park Tool Co. » FFS-2 : Frame and Fork Straightener : Frame & Fork Tools) at my local bike coop, lots of strength, snickers bars, and learning that nicer bench vises have a built in pipe vise and it was ready to go. Sans a few paint imperfections due to my work. Replacing it would've been preferred...but sourcing a 1 1/4" threaded fork with canti studes is non-trivial task.

What are your recent bike repair accomplishments? What do we have to look forward to? Tips?

Homebrew01

I've done everything there is to do on my own bikes. Not enough time to work on them now. Just enough to keep them rideable.

Velocivixen

As of last summer I'd never done more than change a tire. Even that was like wrestling an octopus! So I bought a bike (French) off CL for the first time, and with the help of the internet and Parks Big Blue Book, proceeded to repack the headset and bottom brackets! Pretty good for a first time gig.
My latest accomplishment involved removing a rear derailleur, deep cleaning, reinstalling along with new cables/housing and, following instructions of Parktool blog, it actually shifts - well! I also removed the Shimano 200GS 7 speed RapidFire shifters, got the outer housing cover off and was able to get in there with degreaser and little brushes and clean 22 years of gunk out, then re-lube & reassemble. With that and new shifter cables/housing they shift like new - just great!

So those are my most recent accomplishments.

SquidPuppet

A few days ago I stripped the powdercoating off of a Schwinn cantelever frame and fork using methylene chloride. Time consuming and tedious. Putty knife, steel wool, steel brush and razor blades. Pain in da butt.

rms13

Replaced my first broken spoke a few weeks ago. First time using the spoke wrench. Wheel is nice and true.

I've pretty much done everything else at this point other then install headset because I don't have a press and it's not worth saving $20 to try to do diy. Plus I'd have to buy all the DIY parts so I would probably only save $15

jmeb

Ick. I've avoided all stripping of paint thus far...

I'd thought the same thing until my recent debacles

HillRider

What I've concluded after many years of working on my own and friends/family bikes is RTFM. The various component makers, Shimano, Campy, etc., spend a lot of time preparing "owners manuals" and "installation instruction sheets". Read them!

rms13

Have you seen Ritchey's? It's two pages that is supposed to cover all of their products and basically says if you don't already know how to do this go to an lbs.

zacster

I built a pair of wheels from scratch using a tensionometer, replaced cantis with v-brakes, replaced rear derailleur, cassette and chain on my new wheel, installed dynamo lighting, replaced shifters and levers, cables and housing, repacked the old crank. All this on my commuter bike. Most of this work I've never done before. I wish I had a better frame now than the old Trek 7000 that I put it on. Maybe next year I'll get a nice carbon frame and fork, but it'll have to be 26" and v-brake compatible. This is getting to be an old spec for a new frame.

xenologer

I build my bikes from frame up, so pretty much done everything, newest skills are learning to make wheels, and overhauling suspension fork

Drew Eckhardt 

I successfully updated my Garmin Edge 500 firmware for the first time. It was far less straight forward than building a pair of wheels although thankfully much faster.

That required squinting to read the serial number on back, registering it on-line, installing the browser-plugin, installing the new Garmin USB driver when the browser plugin wouldn't see my unit, downloading some new Garmin program because the firmware download was no longer a web site option as suggested by other Garmin web pages, and using that program to install new firmware/GPS firmware/time zones. On reboot it didn't see my heart rate strap until I scanned for it and re-paired it.

That was motivated by riding seriously again, building my NOS PowerTap SL+ (Saris replaced it with a new one when it went in for service sans the bent rim I had it in) into a wheel with a matching front on a NOS carbon window front hub, and not being happy with the Garmin crash when I hit lap following my FTP test.



Velocity Fusion HALO retro-reflective, DT 2.0/1.5 Revolutions, alloy nipples. 32 hole cross-3. I had to tweak the spoke lines at the rim in back, then found the notes from my last one which said to do 2X on the next one because I had to tweak the spoke lines due to the angles coming off the high flanges....

seedsbelize 

I built my first wheel with a dyno hub. I have not yet had the opportunity to test it. Also, this same bike is my first with bar end shifters, and the first I've built up from scratch, including both wheels.

upthywazzoo 

Going to try this in about a week on a Team Miyata I'm building up. I'm switching the headset out for another and the headset cups are really stuck in there. Not wanting to risk damaging the inside of the headtube, I urdered one of those pipe-looking, Park headset tools. I'll get it in a few days.

rms13

...ok, haven't done any wheel building. That is on my short list.

On that topic, is there generally a finical savings in building your own wheels or is it like complete bikes where buying the complete is usually cheaper then building it yourself?

Deal4Fuji

For you pick-up owners, here's a bike carrier that keeps them inside the bed (and more safe IMO) than hanging from the bumper on a hitch rack. Cost is about $30 for 2X4's, 4 corner bolts, deck screws, 4 eye screws & rope.

My brother's idea, but his is for 2 bikes.

jmeb

Generally no costs savings involved in building yourself. The only (financial) reason to build yourself is that you want a particular rim/hub/spoke combo you can't find elsewhere. Otherwise it is usually cheaper to buy pre-built then tension, stress relieve, and true them yourself.

Suspensions scare me. Should they?

One more reason I need a truck...

upthywazzoo 

I disagree with this, actually, if the goal is to obtain wheels in a certain weight class. I built my own wheels that were in the 1600g range with old record hubs, and the material cost was about $170 with shipping. If I had, for example, gone weight-weenie and used CX-Ray spokes and aluminum nipples and lightweight hubs, I still wouldn't have crossed the $300 threshold. I doubt that one could find a sub 1500 or 1600g wheelset prebuilt in that dollar range.

fietsbob

Replaced seat post bushing on my Mk2 Brompton, and repacked the wheel bearings ,
Modify/created a second QR band lever to wrap around its seat post to cure slippage .

Fabricated a chain keeper over the rear IGH R'off cog so it wont have anywhere else to go than stay on, when I spin things backwards ,

chain oiling , putting the pedal up , at the top of the stroke, etc..

Wired taillight mount on the Bike friday out of zefal mudguards struts.

re assembled the CK grip king HS properly the lads at BF were in too much of a hurry I suppose..

dropped in 4 Enduro bearings in my Bullseye hubs , wheels I had built (original bearings were a lesser ball fill )

mid bike tour in Ireland the frame prototype had a re-welding job in Killarney , non bike welder..

freewheel hub (Phil) broken spoke .. borrowed a big wrench to pull the freewheel in Nottingham ,

Then bought a few rounds with the wrench owner

Hendo252 

Price it out and see what you find for the components you are interested in, and any tools you will need.

my experience was that it was considerably more expensive, but a ton of fun and personally very satisfying to build my own wheels up.

As as my dad used to say, pay your money and make your choice!

Tim_Iowa

I recently built up my first wheels, using Phil Wood hubs, DT Comp spokes and Velocity Synergy rims.

And then I built up the rear again a few weeks later, after I bent the new rim on a big pavement gap.

I also removed my original crank (Campy 50/40/30) and BB (Campy cartridge) and installed a Stronglight 99 52/40/30 on a Stronglight spindle, in a loose ball Campy BB.

Regarding the economics of building a wheel: If what you want can be found "off the shelf" in readily available wheels, then you generally save money by buying pre-built. You still should check the tension and truing on any machine-built wheel.

If what you want is less common, then you're generally better off building it yourself. I already had the Phil hubs, and I used an off-center drilled 650B rim. Not something I'm gonna find pre-built.

zacster

I built my wheels myself because I couldn't find a 26" dynamo wheel that I liked. And then once you get started it is very satisfying to do it yourself. I even bought a tension meter when I decided that my original build wasn't tight enough. I'd guess that sometimes it pays to diy and sometimes it doesn't. My wheels were about $220 total for front and rear, using Shimano 3N72 front, LX T780 rear, Mavic XM317 rims and Wheelsmith 20-17-20 spokes. Total weight is 2200g, mostly because of the front dynamo. It would be 1700-1800 with a regular lightweight front hub.

Reynolds 

Disassembled, lubed and reassembled my Nexus 8 IGH. A new one for me.

jojomojo

Not nearly as much as an accomplishment as what other people shared, but I thought you might have a laugh; I am embarrassingly bad at bike maintenance. I recently cleaned my drive chain (long overdue) and lowered my stem. I also learned how the compression plug works in the headset by trial and error. I loosened the bolt way too much when trying to get the top cap off, and it fell into the frame... Had a mini panic-attack, but figured it out with my bike maintenance book and Youtube. Oh, and a chopstick to get the parts out of the frame.

Dave Cutter

I am Restoring an old Schwinn Continental... and removed cleaned and re-wrapped the old (bicycle color matching) plastic handlebar tape. 1st time I've ever worked with the old plastic tape.

xenologer

i'd bought a used bike whose suspension fork was bleeding oil on the stancions, bad seals
didn't have anything to lose by trying
this was really helpful: Enduro Fork Seals BOMBER Installation Instructions
turned out great


only special tools had to buy were long socket wrench extender, strap wrench, pvc pipe, suspension oil