WNG

My landlord had informed me about a coworker who has to ride into work because he has no car and is on probation. We are not aware of his circumstances, only that he picked up a bike for $10 in order to work and rode 20 miles round trip. My landlord worked as a bike mechanic in the 70s when he was a young man. He looked at the bike to discover both wheels are out of true and the rear brakes are missing. He asked me if I could lend the guy my spoke wrench.

He is a native American, in his 50s, trying to keep a job, with his only source of transportation being a bike. I sympathized for what this guy was going through. So I offered to take a look at it and true the wheels if it was possible.

The fellow stopped by on Sunday at 11am to drop off his bike. It was a Walmart Schwinn hybrid. It wasn't too bad of a bike when it was new, but it wasn't looking so good now. The rear wheel was way out of true. The rear V-brakes weren't there. The Alivio RD wouldn't shift to the small cog. There was no FD cable. The left side shifter and brake lever are missing. The original handlebar has been replaced with a chromed cruiser bar. The front wheel deflected side to side rubbing the brake pads. Masking tape was used to attach a broken rear blinky to the stays.

He complained that the brakes don't work, and it's tiring to pedal. I told him that's because the front brake was dragging and that the bike is stuck in the granny ring. He told me he pedaled furiously and went pretty slow. I can't imagine doing it for 20 miles!

I told him I'll do my best and see how much can be fixed. He left after his sister came to pick him up. I wheeled the Schwinn into the backyard to get started.

I began with the rear wheel, and spotted the valve was crooked. So I went to relieve the air pressure in order to straighten it. I press in the valve and I get sprayed with green Slime! Tube is filled with the nasty sealant.

I remove the wheel to place into the truing stand, only to find the NDS is missing a spacer and locknut! The axle was loose. And I can't true it. I dug out a spare rear MTB hub I saved last year, from the bike shop trash. It had the proper spacer and nut for the 135mm axle. After I resolved that, I went at truing the wheel.
The waviness was about an inch side to side. I didn't think it was salvageable but it came out satisfactory. Time to mount it back on the frame and see about the shifting.

I install the wheel and couldn't get the skewer to clear the dropouts. It was missing the springs, but that isn't it. I loosen the skewer nut for more room and it detached from the skewer axle and rolled off!
WTH! There wasn't enough thread. I had to dig out more spares, rear skewers. I discovered his skewer was too short, probably a 126mm OLD model, I used my MTB hub skewer and it fit fine on the frame.

Next came the shifting. It downshifted but not upshift all the way. I found the cable housing was kinked by a guy wire wrapped over it. The guy wire was securing a blinky mount. I cut those off and the shifting issue was cured.
Now I addressed the front shifting issue. I went to see what I had in the way of the left front shifter. I unfortunately had nothing. So the only thing left was to set the FD to the middle chainring. That went smoothly.

At this rate, I thought I'd be done in under an hour! I moved onto truing the front wheel. I released the skewer and dropped it off the fork. I noted that the wheel was canted to the right of the fork. The rim was not as bad as the rear one, and front wheels are usually easier to correct. I finished a few minutes later and went to re-install the wheel. After tightening the skewer, the wheel was still crooked. WTH! I flipped the wheel and it's still in the same position. The fork is not aligned!

I took the bike off the stand and found one fork blade is further forward. That's just wonderful!!
I have no frame tools, and thought how am I going to bend this aluminum straight blade fork?? I elected to get medieval, I grabbed the frame and tried pushing down on one fork leg. I felt it giving....I thought. Place the wheel back on and nothing changed. What gave was the chromed cruiser bar! The right side I was bracing against, bent near the stem!

Now I must fix the handlebar, and managed to pull it back. Can't use the bars for leverage anymore.
Back to the fork. I tried dropping the weight of the bike onto one fork against a cinder block. That was tiring. And it worked too well, as the blade bent an inch too much! I somehow reversed it and it was back to being too far forward. But I also twisted the aluminum dropout and closed up the slot! I opened the dropout and realigned it with a monkey wrench. But I couldn't install the wheel. The dropouts were now 3.5" apart instead of 4". Oh no!!

My landlord came over to help and we didn't have anything to place over the fork blade for leverage. Finally he found an 8ft. 2x4.
I flipped the bike over and pried the fork blade wider. At least the wheel installs now.

To 'fix' the misaligned blades, I suggested we use the 2x4 between the blades and twist them simultaneously. We each stepped on a end of the handlebar, and pushed against the ends of the 2x4. Looks like it's working! Then all of a sudden the fork spins and we nearly lost our balance. The stem had worked loose.
I flip the bike upright to find the binder bolts quite loose. Once that was done, we set to try again. With each twist, I try the wheel. Then the 3rd try, the wheel won't install into the fork. A locknut had loosened and it and a cone had backed out! Once again, I go fix it with my cone wrenches and we return to the fork.
We got it close enough that I called it done. We were both sweaty, my back and shoulder was killing me from lifting and pounding the fork.

I put the bike back in the stand. The brakes were the final mechanical hurdle. The front V-brakes had no spring tension adjustment. The screws had no effect.
So I did the ol' bike shop trick of bending the springs until the spacing was dialed in. I wanted to install a used set of Tektro V-brakes onto the rear, but I couldn't find a linear brake lever in my parts box. So, the front brakes had to make do. The pads were worn out, so I installed the pads from the Tektro set on there. And a replacement brake cable for the frayed original.

To finish the bike off, I used an old steel reflector bracket at the rear bridge. And zip tied the busted blinky to it. And installed a white reflector to the handlebar.
3 hours, covered in grease and sweat. No lunch yet. I was tired. It's so much harder to work on junk bikes.

The coworker came to collect his Schwinn. I pointed out the fork was damaged in a crash. And we did our 'best' to straighten it.
Also pointed out all the issues and necessary parts. Told him the bike should be a lot better ride than before. He took it for a spin and he came back with a big smile. He was very satisfied. Asked me how much he owed me. I told him nothing. Just pay it forward if he ran across someone in need of a helping hand.
He was surprised and shook my hand and thanked us. He was beaming as he spoke to his sister.

It was a frustrating battle with the bike. But in the end, his smile and relief reminded me why I took it upon myself, and knew it was all worthwhile.

Zinger

That's the coolest story I've heard so far this year

I hope that aluminum fork blade doesn't fail after being pried on like that.

RoadTire 

...which is why I bite my tongue every time someone has a bike that I "would be happy to take a look at." You had more parts and experience resource than I, and more patience. My experience is limited - about 120 hrs volunteer work last fall on donated bikes, but I did learn we never know how deep the rabbit hole is on any particular bike. As far as working locally to donate my time on bicycles, I was considering having the bikes I work on come back at the end of the season so that I could check them out and avoid (hopefully) bikes getting into such disrepair.

Good job and contrats on getting the gentleman's wheels back under him!

Daveyates

Good job and very kind of you!

Drillium Dude 

Which is why I'll never work in a bike shop as a mechanic - and why your sticking with it to deliver him a working bike was the coolest thing I've read on here in awhile

Kudos to you, my friend!

DD

YoKev

^^this

There is an overabundance of kind hearted souls in this forum

Kobe 

WNG, you are working your way up to bike heaven!

It's amazing how many issues a bike can develop when some people try to "fix" them on their own. I have worked on a few Walmart bikes for neighbors and all I can hope for is to make it a little better then when I started.

Chrome Molly

A lot of good effort (your intentions, patience, and perseverance are great). All the cheapening and short cuts of dept store BSO's would drive me batty and exhaust the parts stash. I'd probably just pull a better bike I already rescued off the shelf, give it to the guy and place the BSO in the recycling bin (actually I have done that for some of my daughters friends that had BSO's).

I love the craigslist adds selling old walmart frames for $50. The parts probably fell off the bikes, leaving just the frame.

rootboy 

There's one more in your good Karma pile, WNG. Good on ya!

auchencrow

^ This is what makes all the grief seem trivial.

oddjob2

Very nice and kind of you to invest so much time and effort for a stranger.

My story of good intentions involves a neighbor's $15 Schwinn Continental. He has resources, just likes riding a bargain.

He broke a pedal. I said I would install new pedals, but I only have 9/16" and some French pedals. Well I ordered a set on ebay advertised as 1/2" spindles, only to find the ebay seller ordered them from Amazon and had them shipped to me, with about a 100% markup. They turned out to be 9/16", making me an unhappy camper. Well I ended up going to the bike coop and spent 20 minutes sorting through 2 milk crates of pedals. Ended up with an unmatched set of BMX pedals. Also replaced two rusted cables. No charge of course.

bradtx

WNG, Helping out another cyclist is just the right thing to do. When my daughters were young there were several other kids their age in the neighborhood and many of their bikes were repaired in my garage.

More frustrating is when I was asked to repair two auto shift bikes. One had a fatal flaw I can't remember and was cannibalized to make one good bike. That bike has sat on hooks and has never been used. All that work for nothing.

Brad

dwightisright

Good story. I wish we all had stories like that.

a77impala

You did well! I volunteer at local Yellow Bike and the greatest reward is the smile seen on a young riders face on his new bike!

David Newton

Karma?
No, the rule is "no good deed goes unpunished".

TimmyT 

That's very kind of you. Well done.

(I hate junk x-mart bikes .... had to say that.)

Fahrenheit531 

That, WNG, is a great story. If more of us* behaved as you did here the world could be a truly amazing place. Good on ya!

* Not cyclists. People.

WNG

Thanks for the kind responses, folks! I'm certain many of you would have done the same if found in a similar situation.
I put myself in his shoes....and I recently fell into hard luck and received sympathy and assistance from the most unexpected sources and people.
Knowing he was struggling for months on this bike and holding his job. And being able to do something about, meant I was compelled to help.

This past week, I was informed of news concerning my ongoing legal struggle. It was a fortunate coincidence to gain this information. But when I asked if we were going to act upon this to help my case, and to intervene and possibly help another person from being victimized....I was told no. I was appalled by the apathy of the response. How can one sit idly by when one can affect a change that would be just and right ? What happened to our humanity?

This left me disturbed, and reminded me I am not dead inside, even though I've experienced some of the worst in human behavior. I will not allow myself to succumb. My faith in humanity was reinforced by the charitable actions I received, when I no longer had status, title, and wealth. I found out who my true friends are. Our actions define us, not our possessions.

And if I put back into the pot a small bit of the good fortune and luck I got when I needed it most, may it make a positive change for another soul.
I'm not a religious person, but a line I heard really resonated within me. God doesn't care what you were.....just who you are.

bobotech

I put in about 20-30 hours a week at my co-op so I can understand the pain you go through. Way to go on making the bike rideable. We deal with that with a lot of homeless people who bring their bikes into the shop. We try to make their bikes usable at minimum.

sunburst

yeah, great story. am absolutely amazed at the lengths you went to in fixing that bike and helping someone. I had someone give me an abandoned walmart quality mtn bike a while back. It looked OK but the rear wheel wobbled and front and rear brakes dragged. The plan was to tune it and donate it to the local day worker center. PITA! After many many hours I ended up repacking the rear hub (did NOT know the cheap bastards started making hubs out of plastic!). And after taking it for what I thought was a final test ride I realized it was set up for a kid. I ended up donating a longer seat post and a wider saddle. Never again (I hope).

edit: I mean, never again work on a bike with plastic hubs. Not, never again try to do something charitable.