wheel

Are you becoming a bike Mechanic ?



I think its a logical next step. Maybe not a very good one, but the co-op can help.

I am headed to the snowy tundra, and well I changed my cables, bar tape, and brakes today.

My front brakes screech grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

At least it was no change from before.

hairnet

Yeah, sorta, but because I started out with a POS bike. I had to replace everything at one point or another.

mustang1

I'll never be as competent as a pro bike mechanic.

AdamDZ

I was wondering there for a second what "mechinaic " is

Yes, I have become a home mechanic and I like it! It's fun. It may even save time and money

Adam

CCrew

Dunno, I guess I'm getting fairly qualified rebuilt this yesterday with my son. All new cockpit and driveline..

frpax

I have been my own mechanic since 1985. The only thing I have my LBS do for me is lace up wheels and true them. Minor truing, I do myself.

HardyWeinberg

kinda the same way I'm becoming a plumber too. My car mechanic skillz are definitely fading though.

AdamDZ

What? No fenders? Ya know, this is commuting forum



Adam

Barrettscv 

Ditto.

Bike building is time consuming and requires special tools. I let my bike shop do the building and the fitting work. It frees up time for riding.

If I tried to build my own bikes, I would have to reduce my riding time. I would also be concerned about the reliability of the bikes I'm riding. Now I just get on the bike and ride. I rode 5000 miles last year.

I enjoy knowing about bikes and performing ongoing maintenance & repair. 3 out of 5 of my bikes were built from new frames with all the components sourced by me. The other two bikes I own are vintage bikes that are as reliable as any new bike.

AdamDZ

Doing your own work on a bike doesn't mean lack of reliability, probably the opposite actually. But then, we're all different so it's understandable that not everybody likes working on their bikes. I enjoy it and I have enough free time for this, not everybody does. But, for instance, I never felt the need to work on my car, that's zero fun for me.

Adam

ItsJustMe

I consider myself a competent individual. By that I mean that I'm able to repair anything I need to use from day to day; computer, bike, car, house, whatever.

I trust a repair I do myself a lot more than one done by a shop, regardless of what it is I'm working on. I don't trust anyone else to work on my computer, I have NEVER had a positive experience there. Likewise I only go to vehicle mechanics if I simply can't do the repair myself due to lack of equipment. This has never happened with a bike, I can't imagine what they could handle that I couldn't; bikes simply aren't that complicated. OK, if the frame cracked, I'd have to go buy a gas adapter kit for my welder, but apart from that I feel as qualified to work on my bike as anyone else.

I'm afraid to some extent I hold the old German elitist view; if I can't understand something enough fix it I shouldn't be using it.

tjspiel

So True. It takes me at least twice as long for me to do anything as a pro though.

Since having kids and buying an older home that needs lots of work, I hardly ever do any work on the cars. I once had an engine half apart to replace a timing belt but I never do anything like that anymore. I can barely remember which engine the minivan has in it.

Bikes are very refreshing to work on. There's very little that you can't start one day and have finished by the next.

tjspiel

Having an LBS fix my bike means I need to drop it off, wait till it's done, then go back and pick it up. Though I doubt I could fix anything near as quickly as a pro, in the end my bike in business quicker if I do it myself. As far as bike building goes, yeah, they could probably do it quicker but why I should I pay somebody else to have all the fun?

ghettocruiser

I'm kind of headed in the opposite direction.

xtrajack

I do all my own work on my bike. I let the shop work on my wife's bike. Hers was a brand new Day 6 comfort bike, which I don't like at all, it had issues. I had her take it to the shop. I told Todd at the LBS if it had been mine I would have dove in to it head, **s, and stomach but where it was my wife's and brand new I wasn't going to mess with it.

Andy_K 

My wife claims that 8 out of 10 times she tries to talk to me when I've just walked out of the room I'm in the garage.

Personally, I enjoy working on bikes nearly as much as I enjoy riding them. There's just something very satisfying about getting your shifting perfectly tuned or truing a wobbly wheel. I'm guessing that anyone who doesn't work on their own bikes hasn't read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (though I will admit that adjusting a triple front derailleur can be a step on the path toward electro-shock therapy).

In general, I agree with ItsJustMe's "old German elitist view" and that's one of the reasons I like bikes and hate computers (though my day job is as a software engineer). I'm currently trying to resurrect an old STI shifter that I got for $5 at a swap meet. It may convert me to the bar-end crowd. :-)

ItsJustMe's remarks also made me think of one BikeSnob NYC assessment of the Dura-Ace Di2 stuff: "Electronic shifting will completely change the way you think about bicycles--assuming, of course, that you previously thought of them as being relatively inexpensive and easily serviceable."

tjspiel

I was actually thinking about Di2 as well too. I don't know much about it. Does it do stuff like sense chain rub and adjust the front derailleur automatically? Electronics in cars is a double-edged sword. It can make cars more reliable and substantially reduce the amount of maintenance but when something does go wrong, it can be a b*tch to track down and expensive to fix.

It bothers me some that a bike may become yet another thing that requires a battery to operate.

EKW in DC

I suppose I am. I like the simplicity of bike design and the fact that I can actually do so many repairs on my own w/ general tools I already have or bike-specific tools I can pick up for cheap.

And some of the components are so cheap that you don't mind taking things apart ot see how they work. Case in point, the pedals I salvaged from an abandoned bike in my building's basement. One started grinding on my ride Saturday, so when I got home, I was able to take it apart some and find bearings. Lubed it back up and the bum pedal was good as new, better than the other, which I then took off and gave the same lube treatment. Only after doing this did I come across a tutorial online explaining what I'd just figured out.

I'm hoping to volunteer more with a local bike co-op/youth organization overhauling (or stripping for parts) donated bikes. Hopefully I'll learn some more that way. I figure any wrenching skills I can pick up now may help me when I get things together enough to do some touring.

HardyWeinberg

I'm stoked I got a usb adaptor to plug our VW into a laptop. At least lets me turn that 'check engine' light off.

That's the beauty of a dynohub!

jeffpoulin

Me neither, but I still do (almost) all my own maintenance and repairs. I say almost because I recently had a set of wheels built for me. I can true wheels just fine, but I'll leave the building to someone who knows what they're doing.

no motor?

I went through the plumber electrician phase when I owned a house, and those skills are now fading with the car and motorcycle skills. But my bikes on the workstand in the spare bedroom waiting for me to finish some tuneup stuff for the warmer weather.

ItsJustMe

Wheelbuilding isn't too bad. I've built two wheels that have proven to be very bulletproof, with no prior experience. I built my truing stand out of 2x4s, bought the parts and sat down in the living room with Sheldon's wheelbuilding webpage printed out. 10,000 miles, 40% of it over gravel roads, still dead true. The wheels have been replaced now, but for other reasons; they never did fail in any way.

Besides, wheelbuilding turns out to be kind of fun, and something to be proud of.

Artkansas 

Just the opposite.

My current apartment is tiny and has wall to wall beige carpeting. The only place I can do anything more than pump up a tire is outside on the common walkway. And I'm on the second floor, so if a nut goes wandering it's certain to get lost in the bushes below.

So I've been giving more business to the LBS, even though in the past, I've pretty much done everything including rebuilding bikes and building wheels.

jeffpoulin

Hmmm, maybe I'll disassemble my old wheels then put them back together just for fun. They're factory-built and over 10 years old. The spoke tension is really inconsistent. I'll wait a little while first, though. The old wheelset is for my studs, and while I hope I don't need them anymore, it's too early to take the wheels apart. Besides, if I did that now, it would almost guarantee a spring snowstorm.

wheel

Yes this is a big issue for a car free person. I need to drop it off, walk over to the bus. Then have no bicycle for several days. Then repeat process to pick up the bicycle. I live in area which doesn't have efficient transportation with out walking a .5 mile - 1 mile



Yea but as we can see 80s bikes never dies so that is going to be a long time away.

It took me 4 hours and the help of the bike co-op. I procrastinated forever. 8200 miles on brakes and cables. I can't even fathom how many rides that gave me. Including 8 cycling tours.


I have no tools and no work shop. I just head down to my bike co-op. I am headed to an area with out a bike co-op and my first thing is to organize one hopefully.