Has anybody here personally repair his/her bike?

[andramont726]

Maintaining and repairing bicycles is one of my pleasures in life. Most things are pretty straight forward but you have to look at how things work. I'd be broke if I took all my issues to a shop. Great bike mechanics are sometimes hard to find for some reason.

How about you?

<mod - edited to remove link to DIY bike maintenance DVDs...this person appears to only be posting to advertise these DVDs which, on first viewing don't appear to tell you anything that the many free sources on the interweb do, such as Park tools, etc>

[Brucey]

always.

For decades...

cheers

[NATURAL ANKLING]

Hi,
Would'nt let anyone touch my bike with a 30 foot barge pole

Started on rod brakes, ten shillings it cost an I shared it with my sister
What do you do if on a ride it goes wrong ?
Met a guy once who hadnt changed chain an sprockets for five years , A randonnuer?
So new stuff all round and hey presto, chain jamed and could'nt ride at all
The shop put chain on bike
I do every thing Except make frames.

I.M.O. The most difficult thing to do and get right, is fit a chain with a rivit
I spend a lot of time on this.
Tip after fitting rivit, clean the side plates ( where rivit is) with rag to remove oil etc, then mark side plate and rivit end with tippex (white correction ink)
Then you can inspect rivit easily periodicly

[Mick F]

Hi,
Would'nt let anyone touch my bike with a 30 foot barge pole

+1

Look, but don't touch.

[Alex L]

I'm learning new stuff as I go with the help of this forum. I'd definitely let people touch, at least my LBS and certainly Brucey or Mick. I'd have been stuck 10 times over without some of the members of this forum. I hadn't even re-greased bearings until 2 months ago!

[mattsccm]

There is a local chap who is brilliant with wheels so he sometimes gets them if I can't get the last mm out. Other never have had anyone else do a thing.

[tatanab]

Would'nt let anyone touch my bike with a 30 foot barge pole

A shop does not have the time to spend doing the job to a standard you might do yourself; or the general public would not pay the cost of such a thorough job.

I started at the age of 10 when I stripped my mother's 3 speed hub to see how it worked. I did not start building wheels until I was about 28 so that will have been the last maintenance job done in a bike shop. Now aged 60 I look back at all the things I assumed or simply put up with as a youth. There are still many aspects I have yet to tinker with e.g anything in carbon or an external bottom bracket - I do not have one.

[horizon]

I'm not a natural or even a particularly inquisitive mechanic. I do my own repairs mainly for convenience and cost reasons. I do quite enjoy them but I certainly wouldn't claim any great competence. What I do feel strongly about however is change: as an amateur mechanic the number of times you might do a particular job is relatively small (or it's the same restricted range of jobs over and over again). So any component changes involve a new and for me laborious learning experience. I like to keep things simple and "as before" so any innovation has to be well justified. This makes me a traditionalist but it's as much for practical reasons as tradition. I won't have STIs, suspension or disc brakes for this reason, not because I consider them inferior. The ability of an ordinary person to repair a bike is one of its great virtues and I don't want that to disappear.

[al_yrpal]

When I came back to cycling 6 years ago everything had changed since I last did my own maintenance in the 60s. I bought books, looked at manufacturers awful leaflets and never really cracked a few tasks because lots of things vary between manufacturers. Then I started using YouTube and never looked back. You can see exactly how to do each task on differing manufacturers products. This is important to me because I have one Campag bike, one Sram bike and one Shimano bike. There are some truly awful videos on YouTube done by amateurs but there are some quite professional ones too. I am happy to leave wheel building to those who do it every day. Sometimes there is some awful advice around, even on here, but my Engineering training and experience helps me seperate the wheat from the chaff.

Al

[meic]

I'm not a natural or even a particularly inquisitive mechanic. I do my own repairs mainly for convenience and cost reasons. I do quite enjoy them but I certainly wouldn't claim any great competence. What I do feel strongly about however is change: as an amateur mechanic the number of times you might do a particular job is relatively small (or it's the same restricted range of jobs over and over again). So any component changes involve a new and for me laborious learning experience. I like to keep things simple and "as before" so any innovation has to be well justified. This makes me a traditionalist but it's as much for practical reasons as tradition. I won't have STIs, suspension or disc brakes for this reason, not because I consider them inferior. The ability of an ordinary person to repair a bike is one of its great virtues and I don't want that to disappear.

I am not sure this is really a traditionalist thing. I do every thing on my own bikes, (though I once entrusted my classic Holdsworth to a bike mechanic to ream head tubes and fork crown and he wrecked it. ) but I avoid hub gears because I am not familiar with them. The more modern dérailleurs are much, much simpler to my mind.
So the Sturmey Archer 5 speed hub on the trailer bike will be ignored for the foreseeable future.
Disc brakes are less hassle to set up than cantilevers in my experience, though there was a very short learning curve to go through.

Some of the more modern innovations that are beyond home repair, like STIs or electronic ignition on cars, have proved so reliable that they are not a problem. If you are unlucky enough to have one fail you just replace it, as you would a broken axle.

[Redvee]

I do 95% of my own repairs, the only tasks that I let the LBS do are headset installs, cups into frame, and wheel truing.

[BeeKeeper]

Special tools are an issue. Quite a lot can be done with a metal drift and a hammer but having the right tools makes things a lot easier - but they are not cheap although you can make your own in some cases.

[Ayesha]

Hi,
Would'nt let anyone touch my bike with a 30 foot barge pole

+1

Look, but don't touch.

I went to Italy in the seventies, and heared a local say "Toucha my bike, I breaka your face."

I fettle all my own bikes, on almost a daily basis. There is always something to tweak.

The cyclist who is the saddest is the one who has a drawer of spare spokes, all labelled with which wheel each is for....
Or is it the cyclist who has a drawer of cassette sprockets and only buys cassettes which have removable pins?

[reohn2]

I've always done my own repairs since being very young,though I'd never built a wheel until a couple of years ago,I'd convinced myself it was a very specialist job .
After having a chat with Colin at York a couple of years ago and similarly my LBS(Geoff Smith cycles Bolton who used to build all my wheels,sorry Geoff ) and then buying Roger Musson's E book decided I'd give it a go.
It just shows how you can live under a misconception about something so simple

I agree with Tatanab,a shop mechanic can't spent the time on a bike like a home mechanic can and more often than not if the even a beginer is careful and thorough the job will be as good as anyone else.Various video tutorials are available on youtube and are a boon for the home mechanic.

I agree with Horizon about keeping things simple,but that's no reason to shy away from either disc brakes or STI/Ergos,the former are simple to both set up and maintain,atleast the Avid BB7's are .
The latter are just ratchets,as Meic says very reliable ratchets but ratchets nevertheless.

What I do find depressing is the ever increasing over complication of a lack compatability within any given system which generally tends to originate with cable pull to lever ratios and the race for evermore cogs on the rear which are needless IMHO.For the home mechanic it's becoming stupidly unnecessarily crazy .
IMHO,the answer for the home mechanic is to get to know your bike(s) and get armed with the correct tools(they needn't be the most expensive either) but more importantly information,education is power
Oh, and be aware of those that would sell you what is freely available on the web

[NATURAL ANKLING]

I'm not a natural or even a particularly inquisitive mechanic. I do my own repairs mainly for convenience and cost reasons. I do quite enjoy them but I certainly wouldn't claim any great competence. What I do feel strongly about however is change: as an amateur mechanic the number of times you might do a particular job is relatively small (or it's the same restricted range of jobs over and over again). So any component changes involve a new and for me laborious learning experience. I like to keep things simple and "as before" so any innovation has to be well justified. This makes me a traditionalist but it's as much for practical reasons as tradition. I won't have STIs, suspension or disc brakes for this reason, not because I consider them inferior. The ability of an ordinary person to repair a bike is one of its great virtues and I don't want that to disappear.

Hi,
Very Good