Originally Posted by
Kontact
A Modest Proposal:
Get on Facebook or Craigslist and buy an unloved, higher quality road or MTB from the late '80s/early '90s - very solid bikes. Instead of screwing up your finicky modern bike or trying to perfect something junky, get something of very solid quality that will definitely "tune up" to a very high degree. Spend like $100-200. Try to get it working like new. Look for Deore, XC, 105, RX100, GPX, Cyclone, EX, GPX, etc.
Good suggestion, IMO.
That's a relatively easy introduction to basic bike maintenance, right there. A simple build-up of a bike. Starting with something that's
all there, but which really needs a bit of maintenance and possibly a bit of refurbishing. Can worry about alterations later.
Myself, I occasionally take such bikes and have the bike shop do the install of the bottom bracket, crankset, possibly headset. Then I fiddle with the cabling, chain, derailleur adjustments, and the brakes, . A decent shop handles any wheel building, spokes and truing. My own preference is to not have all of the "special" tools for the whole shebang; but a handful of basic quality tools can accomplish this short list. A co-op in my area can fill in "the blanks" where I'm missing something basic and could use some hands-on guidance. Works well. But requires me to get the basic jobs done in order for the bike to be tuned and working properly, though it starts out functional. Good place to begin. And with the write-ups at Shimano (ie, the maintenance/service guides), Park Tool (their tips and how-to videos), and a couple others, it's fairly straightforward to get these basics done.