Newbie Help - Build Bike from Box?

jamesbrand

Hi how easy is it to put together a bike from the box, newbie here who has never done it before and LBS are charging £40.00 for the service.

Is it fairly straight forward and not to technical, the bike is a Giant Escape 3.

cooldad

Normally fit the wheels, straighten and tighten the bars/headset and fit the pedals. A few minutes and a few allen keys needed.

brucie45

jamesbrand wrote:

Hi how easy is it to put together a bike from the box, newbie here who has never done it before and LBS are charging £40.00 for the service.

Is it fairly straight forward and not to technical, the bike is a Giant Escape 3.

£40.00 for ten minutes wrok?? I am guessing you are buying the bike from somewhere else, possibly online and the bike shop are quoting to put bike together and set up. In that case it's fair enough.

Other than that what cooldad says

jamesbrand

yes bought the bike online for a good price, so from whats been said it is quite easy them and i shouldn't have any probs, what tools do i need in advance?

davidtalbot

Set of allen keys and a spanner to attach the pedals will probably do it.

The Rookie

4,5,6mm allen keys and 8mm allen or 15mm spanner for the pedals (depending on the pedal) will cover pretty much all common bolt sizes.

mattshrops

Can you set up the gears and true the wheels?

montyburns56

There's a big difference between building a bike and making it safe to ride though. For example you'll need to check that that the gear limit screws are set correctly or else your chain might come off and brakes might not be at their optimum settings either. You could build it and then get the shop to do a brake and gear service on it, although I don't know if that will be less than they charge for a full build.

cooldad

Or read 'Read this first' below and DIY. It's routine maintenance anyway.

Chunkers1980

Why would you need to true the wheels, two above?

If they are out of true by a good margin then it would be send it all back time as it'll have taken a big knock somewhere before you've got it.

For the rest what CD says.

mattshrops

A lot of bikes turn up at your lbs in the box with wheels out of true. Most shops will true wheels as a matter of course. (some cheaper models can be all over the place!)

Edit:by all means you can send it back and be without a bike for a bit, and then hope the next one isn't the same...

cooldad

Bikes rarely come raw from the factory. Places like Paul's Cycles assemble, adjust, PDI then take bits off again to ship them out.
I've never bought a bike with wonky wheels.

mattshrops

In which case I guess Pauls will have trued them before shipping. Not sure how many internet wholesalers would even open the box.

cooldad

Do you have OCD issues over wheels?

The Rookie

A wheel really should not arrive out of true, maybe you've been buying some of those Tesco full sussers?

montyburns56

The Rookie wrote:

A wheel really should not arrive out of true, maybe you've been buying some of those Tesco full sussers?

No they shouldn't, but I've seen some pretty expensive bikes come out of the box with Pringles shaped wheels attached to them.

The Rookie

In which case they should go straight back!

mattshrops

Just telling you what I see everyday at work.

Do you have ocd issues regarding people not agreeing with you?

cooldad

He does. He's funny like that.
But seriously when you buy a bike the wheels should be straight. Whether from an LBS or online.
And I don't know anyone who's opened a box to find pringled wheels.
Online sellers don't just forward the box from the manufacturer.

mattshrops

the point still remains although we are getting sidetracked by the wheel issue.

In general - putting a bike together isn't all that hard. Neither is laying a few bricks, plastering a wall etc
some of us will find some/all of the above easy. Some of us MAY put the forks in backwards You know that its happened.
Confident? fine- go for it.
Not so much? let the lbs do it (although for an easy assembly out of the box £30 is a fairer price )

WindyG

mattshrops wrote:

In which case I guess Pauls will have trued them before shipping. Not sure how many internet wholesalers would even open the box.

No they don't, I have seen them put plenty of bikes together for shipping and have seen my own bikes getting PDI'd and straight from box they havn't needed the wheels to be trued, out of the last 4 bikes we have had from there the only thing needed was a cable to be sorted on my road bike.

The Rookie

mattshrops wrote:

Do you have ocd issues regarding people not agreeing with you?

No, I'm saying wheels come true, just like when you buy aftermarket wheels they should arrive true, if they aren't they should be sent back.
My Daughter used to work for Halfords, even with the shonky stuff they sold they would send back any wheel that wasn'tacceptably true. (Noting that true is a misnomer, meausre it accurately enough and no wheel is true!)

mattshrops

Well I guess it depends what you call true.
What I can say for absolute definite, is every single wheel that comes on a bike to our shop gets trued and/or tensioned.
Some will obv. be better than others.

Again back to the point - is the op confident to build his own bike( he needed to ask what tools he may need)?
And although not one single person on here has ever received an untrue wheel out of the box- that could well happen, because I have seen it happen.

And like I said £40 is maybe a bit steep.
At £30 -peace of mind(piece of mind?)

mattshrops

cooldad wrote:

Do you have OCD issues over wheels?

BTW it wasn't you

mattshrops wrote:

Just telling you what I see everyday at work.

Do you have ocd issues regarding people not agreeing with you?

cooldad wrote:

He does. He's funny like that.
But seriously when you buy a bike the wheels should be straight. Whether from an LBS or online.
And I don't know anyone who's opened a box to find pringled wheels.
Online sellers don't just forward the box from the manufacturer.

The hand was faster than the eye, good work.