soloban

I just assembled a motobecane mountain bike a few weeks ago so I can give you the following tips. I used a ratchet with hex sockets for most of the assembly to make it go faster. Also a bike stand of some sort really helps too

1. Insert the seat post (id rub a little bit of bike grease on the part that will be in the seat tube to keep it from seizing later)

2. Mount the handlebars into the stem (the levers and shifters and cables should be atttached). Take your best guess at positioning

3. The derailuers were mounted and tuned fine on my bike (your mileage may vary). Id refer to the sheldon brown or park tool links above.

4. Properly inflate and mount the tires

5. I had to mount the front disc and adjust both sets of brakes. Im sure your road bike has calipers which are easier to adjust (for me anyhow). I usally will start by making sure the brakes are in proper alignment, then, I usally have a helper squeeze the lever while I hold the calipers shut and pull the cable tight and sinch it down. That usally gets me in ball park. Then its just trial and error of spinning the tires and squeezing the lever to check for proper feel.

6. Rub some grease on the threads of the pedals and mount those. Ever try removing a set of pedals that weren't greased?

7. After that was basically fine tuning the fit of the bike. Which for me meant a seat swap, and an adjustable ritchey stem to get a little more lift out of the handlebars.


I use the bike grease that comes in the green tube. The grease it self thick and forest green in color. Any thick grease will do the trick, the idea is to keep the parts from seizing. Automotive lithum grease or even vaseline will work in a pinch.

Oh, and the bike is made in China btw. All the parts are metric (usually 4, 5, 6 mm hex).

As far as the chain goes, mine came lubed, but they used a really thick and sticky lube (because its a mountain bike). The first couple times I rode it the chain picked up all sorts of road grit and dirt. I ended up using my chain cleaner to clean it off and relubed with some road lube. If yours comes with the sticky lube, id clean it off and relube it with some road lube.

If they included free pedals in a blue box that say YF or YP on them, just get rid of them they are crap. Go down to your LBS and pick up a set of shoes and quality road pedals. Most LBS's will mount the cleats on the shoes for you (at least mine did).