I picked up a used bike a few weeks ago. The back V brake boot was cracked and looking tired. Dug out my box of assorted shrink fit tubing. Pulled the old boot. Cut a piece of tubing and slid it over the cracked portion of the boot. Then slide it back over the cable and used a lighter to shrink it up. One day I'll buy a heat gun but somehow I've survived without one.
Here are a couple pics




Sorry if this has been posted before. So many tips here. I've barely made a dent in reading them.

Wait a minute, so there's coconuts in Africa?! (Lol)

Yes, plenty, all over the African continent. Albeit not a major producer, coconuts in Africa are ubiquitous.

This reminds me of the scene in Waynes World with Alice Cooper’s history lesson….lol

Would this "Fix":... a little bit of lithium grease on the strategic places...be good with other vehicle sealing locations like door seals and such ?

A tip I learned today...

Bike: 2023 Specialized Sirrus 1.0 with V-brakes

Problem: My front brake, when applied, has always been noisy. It would make a "shhhhhhh", hissing noise. I tried all of the suggestions for squeaky brakes to no avail. Then I found a technical diagram (sorry I’m a newb and apparently cannot send a link) on the Kool-Stop web site which shows a 90 deg angle between the brake pad and the rim. My angle was more like 110 deg.

Solution: To get the angle down to 90 deg, I would have to shorten the bushing that lies next to the pad. Fortunately, there is a quick fix: simply swap the two bushings. Now the thin bushing goes next to the pad and the thick bushing now goes up beneath the washer. I did this and my angle went down exactly to 90 deg. Now my brake is blissfully silent.

Any time you replace a part on anything, hold the old and new parts side by side to verify. What's the same? What's different? What happened to the old part?

STI's get lazy sometimes. If you are riding and are trying to shift up to the big gear in front but the lever doesn't want to fully pull the cable, you can reach down and just pull the cable to complete the shift.

Not sure if I posted this before, but I used it this afternoon and it worked so well!

When fitting a new cable on a rear derailleur, first use your hands to push the RD and turn the crank to force the chain onto the 2nd smallest cog -- while the shifter thinks the cable is let out all the way for the smallest cog.

Pull the cable taut with pliers with one hand while tightening the pinch bolt with the other hand.

The pliers will not have been able to pull the cable fully taut, it will have about 1 gear of play.

Spin the cranks and the chain will drop into the small cog, and odds are the shifter will be shifting well across all gears (I didn't even need any barrel adjuster at all today, with a 9sp RD)

With 10sp Dynasys/XT Shimano made it so that when on the smallest cog the cable was a lot looser than you'd normally have it. If you pulled it taut it was already too tight. It makes it really easy to get the tension right just by hand feel. You'd think it was too loose but then you'd shift once and it would go to the next cog, and with any luck at all it would shift perfectly through the 10.

Wow, almost a year with no new tips on this thread!

I'm struggling with cup&cone preload on my rear wheel, and this video gave me confidence that I'll be able to get it right! (assuming that riding for months with increasingly bad play hasn't ruined the races :-( )

I'm surprised he didn't mention that you often need to leave a small amount of bearing play on a hollow axle hub, because tightening the skewer can take up the slack - if you don't leave it loose you can have too much preload and shorten the life of your hubs. If you have part worn hubs and can't get them to adjust without tight spots or loose spots, leave them slightly loose, they'll last longer while you wait for new cones or new hubs to arrive.

If you don't have access to a either a proper truing stand or even the materials and/or skills to assemble a makeshift stand like others have suggested, you can simply use a sharpie to mark the spots to adjust.

With the bike upside down, I begin by unmounting the wheel and the tire from the wheel then remount to the frame. Whether it's a rear wheel or front wheel, mount it in the rear because that's most stable. Then I hold the sharpie closely on the seat stay, either side, pointing towards the braking surface and spin the wheel. Make my adjustments at the marks, wipe off marks with an alcohol pad, grab sharpie and spin again. Repeat as necessary.

I usually do it a couple times on each side until it's fairly balanced. This isn't as good as using a proper stand but it'll get you close. I can get mine near perfect.

And if you're having trouble remembering which direction to turn the spokes, try keeping the spoke you're adjusting facing you. That way you can see how righty-tighty, lefty-lucy applies. Or by keeping the nipple pointing downwards, at the top of the wheel, it's the same concept designed to keep focus. I always screw it up with the nipples pointing upwards, bottom of the wheel. It's kind of like backing a trailer. I can't do that either.

I used to have the touch for it but since switching to sealed hubs, I've fallen out of practice. The guy in the video has some good points. Just keep practicing and you'll get it. Good luck!

If you're on a strict no-bug diet, keep mouth closed while riding and breath through your nose.

Cotter pins were getting getting loose and cranks had some play in them. Tried different sized pins with no success.

​​​​​​Breaking off a small piece of hacksaw blade. That fit into the spindle slot for the cotter pin and allowed the crank arm to slide over, then inserting the cotter with the piece of hacksaw blade inbetween the spindle and the cotter pin.

This way the crank never got loose in over a year of riding. There was no problem taking the crank off when needed.

Always nice to see how things operate. Is there already a thread to post YouTube channels?
https://m.youtube.com/@bike.m%C3%BCnchen/shorts

Just cleaned a chain with the old Park Tool spinner thing. Wanted to lube it tonight and not wait for it to dry properly. Had already sprayed it with water and wiped it down with a rag as much as I could.

I remembered we have this handheld airjet dust cleaning thing. Held a rag under the chain run and blew this along it. Amazing how much water AND residual dirt came off.

I stumbled onto a solution for one particular scenario with stripped threads. I was tightening the clamp bolt on my derailleur (#6 in the diagram), and it stripped out the hole in the alloy body. I then tortured myself for days, pondering tapping, inserts, drilling, swapping parts, etc., none of which I liked.

Then I happened to measure the depth of the hole, and I found that it would accept a longer bolt, especially when accounting for the thickness of the radius washer and mounting bracket (7, 8). So I hunted through the little drawers at the local hardware store and found one I liked. They had two options for it in stainless alone. It works like a charm; I didn’t even have to tap any more threads into the depths of the hole.

The head doesn’t match the “umbrella” style of the original bolt, but I see I can get one online if I feel like it, now that I’ve proved the concept

It sure is satisfying to stumble upon a dead-simple solution to a problem that looked like it would require time, dollars, and gray hairs!

Put compressionless housing on ALL your brakes.
After 7 years faffing without on my SA XRD3 drum brake the difference was astounding. It easily and completely locks solid now.
There's nothing better than SA drum brakes that work 100% in ALL weather and one has lasted 33,000 miles and still going on my tour heavyweight.

Another way to true a wheel in the frame is to use the brakes to show high spots, this doesnt work with disks of course.

Crank the caliper to one side slightly or remove brake block on one side. Spin the wheel and gradually wind the remaining/nearest brake block towards the rim with the cable adjuster.

Where the rim rubs or stops you have a high spot. Adjust the spokes to remove the high spot and repeat ......

Keep an eye on how the wheel is centred in the frame, It is good to change over sides at some point to keep the rim central.

Also it is well worth investing in one of the cheap chinese spoke tension guages. The one I purchased for less than a tenner is a decent bit of kit. Very useful to check spoke tension is even and to confirm you have actually tightened a spoke rather than just winding it up!