What level of bicycle maintenence do you perform

dhungerf

What level of bicycle maintenance do you perform?

joe2008

dhungerf wrote:

What level of bicycle maintenance do you perform?

Bikes are pretty easy to maintain yourself these days.

sniper68

Everything.
Built my last three Mountain Bikes and built my Canyon Ultimate CF SL.
Absolutely no need to pay someone to do what can easily be done yourself.
The only thing I need to master fully is wheel-truing.My mate does it for me currently but I am trying!

Monty Dog

Designed my last frame (titanium fatbike) and built the bike myself - raced it in the arctic last winter, I didn't die!

coops45

Just started to learn how to maintain my bike after spending hundreds in bike shops.

The Rookie

I would tick the no-one touches but I don't have a BB facing/chasing tool so that has to be done at the LBS (and only then supervised).

oldbazza

Only things I haven't done yet are fitting a press-fit bb,carbon steerer cutting and wheel truing/building.

May get a decent blade to do the steerers and may get a proper tool for the bb's(have a 'bodge' one which I used for the headset cups on the ally Trek).
Dunno about wheels there is someone who does occaisional courses around here but don't really have the space to set up a wheel tre-ing jig at the mo;might do it when we get the shed(s) sorted though.

drlodge

Do everything myself, except for BB facing and pressing on headset races. However I've only had the need for the former once, and not ever needed to do the latter. Service and build bikes myself.

Oh, I don't tweak my wheels (truing), since there's a club mate who's good at wheel building.

Tashman

So far able to tweak brakes and gears but a willing student

buckmulligan

I suspect a lot of the people who've chosen "Absolutely, no one touches my machine" probably mean "My bike doesn't get properly maintained" or "I don't even attempt anything difficult".

I'd be very surprised if 51% of these people have tried truing their own wheels, for example.

SME

BuckMulligan wrote:

I suspect a lot of the people who've chosen "Absolutely, no one touches my machine" probably mean "My bike doesn't get properly maintained" or "I don't even attempt anything difficult".

I'd be very surprised if 51% of these people have tried truing their own wheels, for example.

The only thing I haven't done yet is straighten the RD hanger - I think mine may be a little out of true and have considered taking it to an LBS, but TBH I think that it'll be another specialist tool that I'll add to my ever increasing collection - I know I'll use it again.

As for truing my own wheels...
My son wanted a cheap upgrade from a 7sp freewheel to 10sp Tiagra, and the hub was only £20. So I rebuilt the wheel...

viewtopic.php?f=40012&t=12643811&start=4940#p19945477

step83

When I first started yes went to an LBS to get things like headsets pressed, now I do a couple Sundays a month at the LBS 8)

22stu

Only thing I've ever paid to have done is a rear wheel straightened after it was hit! Everything else is easy with the right tools.

964cup

Everything. I think the only thing I've outsourced was reaming and facing a steel headtube since I don't have the tools. I build wheels, fit BBs and headsets, build and tune bikes, refurbish and tune components and so forth. I also seem to end up doing quite a lot of it for my clubmates (2 of whom did PBP last year on my wheels, which made me happy).

One of these days I want to learn how to build frames, but I think that's a retirement project if I'm honest.

Pituophis

I tried to build a wheel once from scratch, and the result was pathetic. I don't have the confidence to try truing wheels either now!
Everything else (on my bikes at least) is pretty straight forward. I bought both as parts and just built them up as I went along. Best way to learn how things worked I thought.
Maybe if I'd actually bothered to learn how to do wheels, a few hundred hours would see me right!

964cup

I still make mistakes building wheels, but I think it's less complicated than it seems. The trick (unless you're vastly experienced) is to go slowly, both when lacing and when adding tension. Going round a few times adding a couple of turns each time to bring a wheel up to tension gives you a reasonable chance it will start out reasonably round and reasonably dished, making it much easier to home in on even spoke tension and a properly true and centred wheel. I made a point of breaking down and reassembling the same wheel a few times to get some practice; it's also really useful to have a previously-finished wheel with the same lacing pattern to refer to.

Same thing with cup and cone bearings; cartridge bearings are simple - you just need the right drifts and press - but getting the preload right on cup and cone takes practice (especially on higher-end Shimano hubs with their odd preload retainer cap thing), so it's worth stripping down and regreasing the same hub repeatedly and then resetting the preload just to get the hang of it.

Baron Greenback

For me, very basic tuning and repairs at this stage, but only due to lack of experience, rather than anything else. Haven't ever changed a tyre, or repaired a puncture!

I'm steadily building up a tool kit, and will be prepared to give most jobs a go.

StillGoing

There are only so many jobs where you'll need specialist tools and even then, you may be able to borrow them from the LBS if you're on good terms.

I got wise to being ripped off for servicing of a bike pretty quick and after building my own the first time, realised what a doddle it was. Front derailleur indexing can be a pain in the backside sometimes when trying to get it absolutely perfect at extreme angles on both rings though. I've since built numerous bikes for others and done servicing for the cost of parts and any fuel to fetch them, which suits the owners. I've built and trued wheels too. They might not have been up to the standard of a proper wheel builder, but they were round, dished and true.

CiB

Built a bike from bits years ago (1981?) but always looked after them myself due to a mix of cost and time constraints; waiting a week for someone in a shop to do what I could do never made sense then on paper-round money, and still doesn't.

It's therapeutic and quite rewarding to strip the bike down once or twice a year down to its smallest components that can be disassembled, then clean everything to as-new & put it all back together. It's a useful reminder if you need it of how simple bicycles really are.

fat daddy

talking of which ..... is there a definitive maintanence book that's worth buying.

I kind of want one that covers Shimano 6700 aged road bikes + MTBs, disk brakes and suspension so varying BB's, shifters and components

964cup

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Zinn-Art-Road- ... b_title_bk

But I can't say I've ever felt the need, given the wealth of resources available on the web, especially if you're running Shimano - they put all their dealer manuals on their website, for instance.

fat daddy

cheers for that ... and food for thought regarding just using the internet, its probably a better choice especially considering youtube

hmmmmm

Man Of Lard

Sometimes it is better (more convenient) to have the book though - they don't have power saving features at the critical moment when your hands are covered in grease... Zinn or the Park Blue Book (often appears on half-price or better offers)

StillGoing

The internet is an excellent source for most things. I even learned how to break a rear derailleur down too its individual pieces from the internet.

Nick Payne

fat daddy wrote:

talking of which ..... is there a definitive maintanence book that's worth buying.

I kind of want one that covers Shimano 6700 aged road bikes + MTBs, disk brakes and suspension so varying BB's, shifters and components

These days, if faced with a maintenance task that I don't know how to tackle, my first port of call is YouTube. Other good sources of information that I sometimes use:

Art's Cyclery: http://www.artscyclery.com/learningcenter/
Park Tool: http://www.parktool.com/blog/repair-help
Global Cycling Network and Global Mountain Bike Network have lots of howto videos on YT.

If you really want a hardcopy manual, Barnett's is probably the most comprehensive manual available (my old copy is slightly over 1000 pages in four volumes), but it ain't cheap, and I think the last paper edition available (as opposed to the DVD and PDF versions for the current edition) was about 2003 vintage.

keef66

In terms of maintenance I do everything myself now. A couple of times I've stripped bikes down completely in order to rebuild them, and I've built up a new frameset from scratch. Very satisfying, and once you've done it a couple of times you know how everything goes together and how to fine tune stuff. Armed with that knowledge / experience I frequently find myself stripping things down, cleaning, regreasing, reassembling and adjusting them just for the sake of it...

Over the years I've had various bike maintenance books, but they've all gradually become outdated so I now just rely on the internet. Park Tool / Shimano tech docs / Sheldon Brown / YouTube are my favourites.

You don't need many specialist tools to look after a bike. BB and cassette tools, chainwhip, pedal spanner, decent cable cutters, and a quality set of allen keys is the basic stuff. I've also acquired a mech hanger alignment tool, which I've unfortunately needed several times Seems excessive to have such a specialised tool, but there's no other way to accurately check and correct the alignment of the thing, and they can be had quite cheaply. Certainly cheaper than putting the rear mech into the spokes on a climb!
Crank extractor can be handy for older bikes, as is a freewheel remover. A decent workshop chain tool and some missing link pliers make those jobs easier too.
I also have a DIY headset press made from threaded rod, nuts and big washers / spacers, which I had to use to install the press-fit headset cups on the CR1 frameset, and which I'll likely use when replacing it's press-fit BB.

And a workstand makes most jobs a lot easier / more comfortable.

And when I retire I'm going to learn wheelbuilding...

964cup

You don't *need* many tools for basic servicing, but in the course of building bikes and wheels I've managed to fill a full size Snap-On cabinet, a cupboard and several Really Useful crates. It's astonishing how many tools you end up accumulating if you really try to do everything yourself. It's also astonishing how many different "standards" there are for things. Never mind the obvious press-fit BB thing. I have *four* different freehub/wheel remover tools (Campag, Shimano, two-prong Suntour/Regina and four-prong SS); at least seven spoke keys (standard sizes plus Shimano WH-9000 hexagonal, Campag/Fulcrum high-end soft-as-pasta aluminium spoke horror, DT Swiss Prolock square driver etc) and on and on and on like this. The DT Swiss aero spoke holder doesn't fit Shimano aero spokes, FFS. I just bought a 3.5mm allen key because Campag, in their infinite wisdom, decided to use that commonly-available size (not) for Delta brake cable clamps.

At some point I'm going to make a list of all the tools I've bought that I've used precisely once...

mugensi

I'll do everything bar touch the BB or cranks. I just don't understand preload etc etc and so leave those jobs to LBS but can do everything else myself including truing wheels that are very slightly out.

StillGoing

MugenSi wrote:

I'll do everything bar touch the BB or cranks. I just don't understand preload etc etc and so leave those jobs to LBS but can do everything else myself including truing wheels that are very slightly out.

Surely you know how to use a torque wrench? It's no harder than that.

prawny

I've put down most, but in the last 5/6 years I've not taken my bike to a shop once, but that said, none of them have needed much more than a BB swap or chains/cables/tyres etc.

I'll true wheels, but not build, and I've not got tools to press headsets, and make sure I get threaded BB frames. Not had to replace a headset yet, but might have to on the current commuter.

proto

I do everything myself. Built countless bikes over the years. Bikes are pretty simple.

I've never bothered with a torque wrench, even when working on my C59 and my daughter's Dogma and Series 9 Madone.

Some time back I designed and brazed a Reynolds 653 race frame which turned out very well. I've made hubs, bottom bracket cups, all sorts of stuff. Helped a few mates out by gluing stuff back on various carbon frames.