Oh, and related to chainring bolts: can't tension some of the bolts properly, because they are slipping? Clean with a degreaser or with alcohol the affected surfaces to remove any trace of grease or oil. Often that's all you need to do, but if it's not enough, apply a little bit of acetate glue - actually, I found that any paper glue will work fine, including wheat starch glue (if you can even find such anymore (I'm passionate about antique book conservation, so I have my sources...)). Wait till it dries a bit before tightening the chainring bolt.

NOTE: You apply the glue to the surfaces of the bolts that face the chainring, not the threads.

If your derailleur is out of sorts, and you are going to go through an adjustment sequence, always do this first. Run the chain down to the smallest cog. Check for slack in the shifter wire at the derailleur. If there is slack, loosen the pinch bolt and pull it out. Retighten, and you are ready to do your adjustments. bk

Buy a fresh set of hex wrenches every once in a while. Much cheaper than stripped bolts and extractor kits.

Or use a grinder/dremel tool to remove the worn out tip exposing fresh hex stock underneath. Just don't overheat hex key while doing this. This will extend their life by at least 3X.

One other hex wrench tip: not all hex wrenches are created equally. Cheaper tools are much softer and are much more likely to round out hex recesses while rounding the corners of the tool at the same time. Quality hex keys are a good investment to make.

I know there are a lot of uses for old/worn out/too many holes inner tubes but the other day I was out of patches and so I thought about it and determined to give it a shot. I cut out a piece of "old" inner tube, cleaned it along with the spot where there was a hole with rubbing alcohol then buttered (put rubber cement) on both pieces. The place where the hole was in the inner tube and the cut piece of inner tube. So far so good. No problems for over two weeks now, so it doesn't look like I'll be buying any "patches" in the near future.

Carry a $5 bill when you ride.

It will buy some food if you bonk hard.
It will boot a torn tire sidewall.
It is enough to bribe someone in a car for gas money if you break down, and is better than carrying a $10 or $20 as they are guaranteed to "not have change".
You aren't likely to find an impulse buy along your route that a $5 bill will cover, sparing you spending it.

To remove a square-taper crank, the full procedure:

When you screw in the puller, be sure that the "plunger" - the inner screw - doesn't bottom on the axle before the outer screw bottoms in its hole. If it does, it will feel like the puller is all the way in, but it may not have more than a few threads.

When pulling square-taper cranks:

• Visually inspect the crank, checking that there isn't a washer in the hole or parts of the dust cap still in the crank threads.
• Always screw the plunger all the way out before inserting the puller.
• Don't use a wrench to set the puller in the crank unless necessary. If you can't get it in with your fingers, then something is wrong (usually, the threads are damaged). You can use the wrench when you think it's finally all the way in to be sure it isn't hung up, or to force it past damaged threads but be sure it's not crossthreading.
• Count the number of turns the puller makes when inserting it. That will tell you how many threads are engaged. Anything less than about 6 and you're taking a risk.
• If the plunger is tight and the crank doesn't want to come off, tap the end of the plunger with a metal hammer a couple times. The vibrations should cause the crank to loosen. It may pop loose, or loosen just a bit. If it doesn't pop loose, try turning the plunger again to take up any new slack and repeat.

instead of trying to rub talc,cocoa,baby powder,... or whatever onto your tube,... put the talc in a plastic bag with the tube and act as if you were getting ready to bake the tube and shake it. this will get the entire tube covered very quickly.

torque specs can always be related to bottles of beer placed on the the end of a 12 inch wrench

when installing a tube make sure that the valve is in the middle of the largest label on the side of the tire... "it looks professional and will help you to locate the source of flats" - the art of wheelbuilding

before you build a wheel read Zinn's The Art of Wheelbuilding

stop working on other peoples bikes if you don't want to work on your own anymore

don't spend all of your time on this website reading about bikes, get your @$$ in the saddle and ride!

I try not to reply to posts in this thread, but I feel this one time I'll make an ecception: it's not at all a mandatory requirement to (buy and) read that book. Sheldon Brown's article on wheelbuilding is detailed and will enable anyone to build rock-solid 1st class wheels.

I have followed his instructions, and all my wheels are bombproof and true.

Use old spoke nipples as cable ends , just slide the nipple over the cable end, shank end first, squease the nipple shank with the wire cutting jaws of a pair of pliers (gently) to fix to the cable then nip off the head of the nipple with the wire cutters.

This seems like an eccellent hint, thanks! Will it work just as well with nickel-plated brass nipples, or only aluminum? Brass nipples might be a bit too burly for the wire cutters.

[QUOTE=wroomwroomoops;5277707]This seems like an eccellent hint, thanks! Will it work just as well with nickel-plated brass nipples, or only aluminum? Brass nipples might be a bit too burly for the wire cutters.[/QU
I,ve only used the normal n.p. brass nipples , the wire cutters on an ordinary pair of pliers are more than adequate for the job.

The following information shouldn't be divulged to anyone outside of this very small circle of forum members.

Ride your bike to a thrift store and head for the women's section. Find the rack with the exercise clothes and start browsing. Amongst the leotards and fluorescent track suits, you'll find decent cycling gear there (for women and men). Jerseys, cycling shorts, and even rain gear, often of good quality and condition. I guess the people that organize clothing at thrift stores don't recognize the value of these items and misplace them.

Not that there's a whole lot of difference anyway. A lot of that stuff in the women's "athletic" section are made from the exactly same materials as expensive brand-name cycling gear, and usually half the price.

If you have a bent derailleur hanger, find and old, worthless hub axle with the same threading (I can't remember the exact threading off the top of my head), thread it into the hanger, and use as a lever to bend it back. This works amazingly well, from my experience, but there is the possibility of stripping the threads.

... or, alternately, put it in a vice and go at it with a pain of channel lock pliers, perhaps with some wood in the jaws to keep from biting into the hanger. Bend it, look, bend it, look...

It'll never be perfectly aligned and sooner or later it will be too soft to keep using, but until that happens, you can extend the life of the thing dramatically.

But think carefully about continuing the repair after the beer. After two beers - go and have another. Leave the bike until next day for sure.

To improve shifting performance of the rear derailleur, loosen the B screw as much as possible. To do this, put the chain into the lowest gear combination (largest cog, smallest chain ring) and loosen the B screw while back pedaling until the jockey pulley starts to rub the cog. Then tighten the screw back in just until the rubbing stops. Most manufacturers set the B screw in too tight when the derailleurs are new, but loosening this screw in effect raises the point of chain deflection making it easier to derail the chain to the next cog.

I was asked to post this here:
Trombone cleaners work really well for cleaning loose rust out of seat tubes. They are about $5 at any music store that sells band instruments. For oversized tubes or when you want a little more scrubbing power, get a tuba cleaner

Thanks sivat, very much appreciated!

Here is the original post, which contains some other info:

I'm a big fan of classical music, this is about the only time these two of my hobbies met :D

Sometimes you might be in a hurry, and don't have time to adjust the diskbrake calipers correctly. Or just you can't adjust them, no matter what you do. If all you need to do is distance the rotor a tad from the left caliper, you can achieve this QUICKLY with an ad-hoc spacer you put between the left axle end and the left dropout - and this spacer you can make from a slightly thicker aluminm foil, like the top cover of butter or margarine boxes or such. It's actually a surprisingly durable spacer, it will survive easily 20-30 wheel extraction-reinsertion cycles.

Cheap Dicta-like freewheel which you can't remove? You can, using this method.

I just did this, and it worked great:
If you have a steel frame thats been sitting around awhile that you want to build, the BB shell might have some rust in it that have deformed the threads a bit. Chase the threads with old BB cups. Go slow and use some light lubricant. all ready for a new BB!!!

Was it a steel or aluminum cup you used for chasing the threads? Or perhaps plastic (like the cheaper Shimano BBs)?

Excellent point!!! I should have mentioned that steel BB cups are the thing to use when doing this. And make sure they go in straight, and make sure your threads are the same measurement!!

I had bought a used steel frame once, which had the BB threads in a terrible shape. I chased them by carefully using a cardboard cutter blade. Took me some time, but it seemed safer than using a cup. I just didn't trust myself to be able to position the cup 100% correctly. I was worried I'd compound the problem.

My favorite BB tool add-on: long breaker bar with a socket appropriately sized to fit over the head of your BB tool. Has been crucial on a number of occasions for me. In fact, I recommend the breaker bar and a set of 1/2" drive sockets for any mechanic.

Another useful adaptation is grinding a slot in the blade of an old screwdriver (vertically), for un-hooking pesky caliper brake springs.

Using a tire tool for installation can often lead to a pinched or cut tube. Roll it on with the balls of your hands for a snug, safe fit and a sense of smug satisfaction with your muscular ability. Then a sense of shame for your freakish Popeye-like forearms.

2 just learned tips...............

I stripped out the threads on a crank by using a puller before removing the crank nut (duh!) Luckily I had not threaded the puller all the way to the end of the threads. However the "plunger" of the puller would not allow me to reach the remaining threads. I forced (reversed) the plunger out of the tool thereby removing the little cup on the end of the plunger. I threaded the tool back into the crank (carefully) and was able to pull the crank.

Get a cheap set of "E" clip pliers. "E" clips are the little flat spring steel clips that snap into a groove cut around a shaft; normally to hold a gear or piece of linkage in place. These will replace almost ALL of the expensive one-of-kind spanners you need. You make break a few but you can buy bunches for the cost of one "name brand" spanner.....

By "'E' clip pliers" I assume you mean a snap ring plier. I just put new bearing balls into a freewheel assembly and used a thin nose plier as a spanner wrench. The points of the plier were small enough to fit into the depressions in the flange. The tips of the handles were wide enough that I got pretty good leverage on tightening with both hands. A thin nose plier is also sturdier than my snap ring pliers and can torque the retainer more firmly.

This works with my 700C x 23 tires, but not with my 27 x 1 1/4 tires. The 27" tires are hard to get on even with tire irons. I just try to push the tube into place well in advance of where the tire bead is crossing over the rim and hope I do not pinch the tube.