2mo ago

The joys of fixing your bike yourself

I'm a lifelong cyclist, always cycled, will cycle as long as I'm able. Never got around to doing all the maintenance myself though, besides fixing punctures. Never had the tools, never had the patience, never had the confidence. I only have one bike, which I use every day, so making a mess of it would put me out of business for a few days as I would have to haul it to the nearest repair shop, wait for it to get fixed etc. I've relied on bicycle repairmen to keep me mobile, and they've done a great job so far.

I needed new tyres front and back, and new brake pads on my front wheel. I found the tyres on sale online, and had them delivered yesterday. I also got some brake pads. I would normally bring it to the local bike shop after booking a slot, and they would fit the parts, and I would pay the labour. When shopping for the tyres, I came across a small bike toolkit with tyre levers on sale, which I bought thinking I might have a go at it myself. It turned out the little toolkit had all the parts I needed to change the brake pads as well as the tyres. So I thought, what the heck. Let's give it a shot at fixing it all, how hard can it be?

So here I am, a few hours later, and I managed to replace both tyres, and front brake pads! I survived the test drive, and so did the bike, still in one piece.

It wasn't as bad as I expected, and now I feel like I could do even more next time I need to fix stuff. It has really given me a confidence boost, I feel more capable now, so much so, that I've ordered a new rear handbrake as the current one is on its last leg (or hand). Looking forward to hopefully coming out of that exercise successful as well.

This is to say that even if you have 10 thumbs like I do, you might just be able to do your own bike maintenance.

21 comments

Zen and the art of bicycle maintenance.
After doing my own maintenance I feel much more one with the machine and it makes the experience of riding even better.
- This is how I started before working in bike shops.
- I can't wait to get on it tomorrow for my commute to work, entirely because I was able to fix those things myself. Otherwise it's a completely regular day, but to me, it's zen, just like you point to.

When I was a kid I relied on my bicycle to get around and I was simply too poor to pay anyone to work on it for me. It was all I could do to afford the bike itself in the first place. So with some experimentation and slowly buying (or filching) the tools I learned to do it myself.
I've since graduated to motorcycles, but the philosophy is the same.
I'm not broke anymore but that's not the point. Teaching yourself to be helpless will get you every time. Whenever you say, "I can't do whatever," you'll inevitably prove yourself right. Sometimes you'll get yourself into a pickle, sure, but more often than not you'll prevail. And the more you prevail the better you'll get at it.
- That was exactly my attitude, "I can't do this", and for a long long time, I couldn't, because that's what I was telling myself.
  I know you wrote that you couldn't afford to fix your bike, so you fixed it out of necessity. I will still applaud you for doing that, it's not everyone's approach to such a scenario. And now, you have skills, and a much more positive position.

I'm so glad that when I was a kid, my father taught me how to service and fix my own bikes. He taught me the basics, like servicing bearings and changing tires, but that thought carried through my life and I felt comfortable learning more difficult stuff like servicing suspension and straighten and lacing wheels.
I've always thought it's just easier to do it myself in an hour than waiting days for bike shop mechanic to do it for me

I fully agree. Repairing a bike isn't all that difficult. Even more intimidating looking tasks are quite doable. During the pandemic I had to replace the worn drive train of my bike and since no bike shop would take in the bike for repair, I had to do it myself. It was much less difficult than I anticipated.

I turned it into a job!
I recently retired from my real career, and now I work in a bike shop a couple days each week repairing bicycles.
I already knew quite a bit, having built my gravel bike from the frame up, and from doing maintenance on my own bikes, but there were things I had no experience with that I'm now learning. And I'm slowly getting better at handlebar tape jobs.
Do we have a "just riding along" community? I already have two pictures of crazy failures I've seen.

For me, watching lots of bike repair videos gave me more confidence. There are lots of great channels. The only things I've not done now are truing wheels, bottom brackets and cassettes. Those still scare me.
- Bottom brackets are easy (esp.. if they're threaded) - the main thing is having a half-decent stand and the right tooling!
  
  Today my knees and my back definitely agrees with the importance of a half-decent stand. I might have to look into that :)

I recommend any cyclists at least try doing their own bike work. I started with swapping to hydraulic brakes, rotor and pad swap, different bar and grips, swapped the fork and all accompanying bearings due to different fork dimensions, laced up new wheels, swapped derailleurs to accomodate larger rear cog, ran new internal lines for brakes and shifting, adjusted the derailleurs, and probably more.
The only things I consider kind of annoying would be lacing a wheel for a bunch of reasons, and running the shift lines since it can seemingly be done poorly enough to make adjustment impossible. I guess realizing you don't have the tool or have the wrong size of it for any of the tasks is also a pain in the ass if your local shop doesn't stock the one your bike needs.

I feel like my 2nd job has been as a bike repair specialist.
My sons each have bikes and I swear that all those things do is break. Theyre just riding them around town and there is always something wrong!
Makes me mad because they were not cheap either. If I am paying $900 for a bike, it seem fair that the act of riding it would not cause failure. Shift cables have frayed and broken, neverending issues with brakes (a pebble got stuck in the caliper) and one of them, the wheel is warped from sitting in the bike shed for the winter! It literally just sat there!!!
I feel like modern bikes are expensive and fragile beyond reason. My old cars dont have as many problems as these things!
- I don't have experience with cars, so I can't speak to how difficult they are to fix, and my bike is a 2nd hand single speed bike I bought for $120, exactly because I need to keep it simple. My commute is relatively flat, so the upside of having less parts that can break outweighs the struggle up the hills I need to conquer on my way to work :)

@7bicycles@hexbear.net

Even the simple stuff is fun.
This month, I decided to take on a rather long tour, and wouldn't you know it my tire got punctured. In my eagerness to plan for everything I never experienced, on this tour I completely forgot to pack anything to help with that.
After reaching the nearest town with a completely flat tire, asking random people got me to the local odd job man: an old grandpa who opened the door without his shirt. After explaining my problem, he asked me to push my bike to the other side of the house. There was a garage filled with loose parts stacked on high, and among them he picked out just what I needed.
I waved him good bye just a few minutes later, and all it cost me was a new mandatory stop in the area,
- Not achieving perfect planning does provide for great human encounters. One of the two cars I ever owned, broke down in the middle of nowhere, and ended with me staying overnight in the guest room of the mechanic who ended up fixing it. Great guy, just like the gentleman you encountered. They are out there, willing to fix our broken toys :D

Like anything its all about time. If I could decide what to do each day instead of working (or like now looking for work) then its more fun as you can pace yourself, learn as you go, etc. When you only have so much evening and weekend though and if you make enough its nice to have a shop take care of it while you go shopping or take care of something else or watch a show, play a game, etc.
- I definitely agree that time is a decisive factor as well, when it comes to fixing it yourself. I totally understand opting for a professional to fix your bike, if time is limited, and you want to, or have to, spend your time on other things. If you have the option to pick, I guess it's a question of whether practicalities or passion wins out.

It’s all fun and games until you try to take your cranks off and they decide to stay on. Last time i replaced my bottom bracket took me hours because of that bullshit.
But i agree, lots of fun fixing it yourself. And much cheaper.

21 comments