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A love letter to bicycle maintenance and repair

tegowerk.eu

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Re: A love letter to bicycle maintenance and repair

#91

Post by getwiththeprog »

matsemann wrote: post #47
dailykoder wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should all just look out for each other. Mostly follow the rules, but don't let common sense go abroad. There are so many cyclists in berlin that just go in front of all the cars at a red light, even it's just one car in front of them. I know that this car can accelerate way faster than me and drives way faster, why would I want to block it and make the driver mad? Yes, if the road is congested I might pass the ca…

"We should all look out for each other" is unfortunately often code for "cyclists should yield at all times and have a sixth sense to avoid getting killed by impatient or distracted drivers". I was biking in the cycle lane the other day, going straight. A car came up next to me, and suddenly turned right to get off the road. I got the tingles just before and suspected it, so I managed to break and avoid being right h…

Big people (cars) should look out for the little people (bicycles).

Re: A love letter to bicycle maintenance and repair

#93

Post by mianos »

getwiththeprog wrote: post #88
UnserMannInK wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, the price tag might buy you a second hand car. But if you factor in the maintenance cost of cars it comes in cheap in comparison. I’ve just had to replace the clutch in my car (~2200€), whereas having the whole transmission (all sprockets and the chain) in a bike fixed is around 250-300€. Less if you do it yourself. And being able to do it myself feels really good, I couldn’t agree more!

For the price of registering a car for one year in Australia, one can buy a really awesome bike new.

With insurance you get get two. Of course if you have two, that's not enough. I think the correct number is N + 1. Everyone says Sydney is the worst place in the world to ride a bike, but, it's still better than any other form of transport for a short distance.

Re: A love letter to bicycle maintenance and repair

#94

Post by getwiththeprog »

wruza wrote: post #76

I had a few bikes when I was a kid and a teenager (backpedal braking era). Each one costed like dirt and could be rebuilt/repaired in a couple hours with a bag of instruments hanging below the seat. Then I rode it few months without service. Most of my bikes died due to fatal injuries or were stolen. Modern bikes is something I don’t understand. Complex aggregates, systems and subsystems, spaceship furniture, etc. An…

A very good bike is AUD$1000, a great bike is AUD$2000, and a super-duper over the top bike is AUD$3000. Anything more is potlatch https://www.britannica.com/topic/potlatch

I'm sorry to say I do understand all these above pricing categories short of potlatch.

Re: A love letter to bicycle maintenance and repair

#95

Post by Ringz »

agumonkey wrote: post #73
BrianHenryIE wrote: post #3

Cycling is a joy. When I experience / see people diss cyclists, I'm sad for them. It implies they cannot empathise with others (me). My physical and mental health are better thanks to cycling.

I'm a part-time cyclist (I stopped using cars 5 years ago) but after seeing a few bad ones on youtube videos I can understand the rage sometimes. They just cut anywhere without any regards for traffic. That said a lot of people are crazy on roads, motorbikes, cars too (probably more often and more dangerously).

You're absolutely right! However, the main difference is that cyclists pose much less danger to other road users compared to motorcycles, cars, or trucks. Of course, there are accidents where a cyclist collides with a person and causes serious injuries, but when a motorcycle, car, or truck collides with other people, the consequences are dramatically more severe. This isn't to justify cyclists doing whatever they want in traffic, but they usually only endanger themselves. If they collide with a car, the car might get a dent, which can be fixed within a few days, whereas the cyclist might struggle with injuries for weeks, months, years, or even a lifetime.

Re: A love letter to bicycle maintenance and repair

#96

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

freetime2 wrote: post #87

I love cycling but absolutely hate maintenance. I’d always prefer to be riding my bike than working on it. Two recent enhancements that significantly improved my life are electronic shifting, and wax lube. I haven’t had to mess around with gear indexing once since I bought a bike with electronic shifting (SRAM Rival) a couple years ago, and it always shifts perfectly. I do have to keep the batteries charged, but one…

I'm at the other end of the spectrum and am always fettling my bikes and looking to upgrade parts etc. However, I've switched over to just using Squirt lube on my chain (on my road bike at least) as I previously tried the full wax treatment. That involved cleaning a new chain to remove the factory applied grease (using a cheap ultrasonic cleaning machine) and then using a cheap pan to warm up paraffin wax to which I added some micronised graphite (bought off eBay) for extra lubrication, although it turns the wax and your drive-train black. Soak the chain, then pull it out and let it cool off until the wax has hardened. I found that a treated chain would last for about 100 miles or so before needing a top-up (of squirt lube) or another dip in the wax bath, so I was alternating between two chains.

However, when I was topping-up the treatment with Squirt, I thought why not just use the Squirt and not bother with the whole waxing business. The problem I have is not being good at looking after my bike straight after a ride and here in the UK, that means the chain tends to get rusty so I end up getting through more chains than I should.

Re: A love letter to bicycle maintenance and repair

#97

Post by criddell »

bombela wrote: post #78
kashyapc wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the reason I use a single-speed bike (not to be confused with a "fixie") for commuting. I absolutely love the simplicity of it: no gears to muck around with, much less maintenance, light, and hassle-free. Perfect to deal with the "frequently stop and start" biking in a city. In a (flat) city for commuting short distances, you simply don't need gears if you're below 50. It's a nice to have . It also helps that…

> you simply don't need gears if you're below 50 And here I am with all the gears; on a nice road bike; and I struggle to maintain 30 km/h on flat.

Is maintaining 30 km/h important? Why not leave a little earlier?

Re: A love letter to bicycle maintenance and repair

#98

Post by fulafel »

freetime2 wrote: post #87

I love cycling but absolutely hate maintenance. I’d always prefer to be riding my bike than working on it. Two recent enhancements that significantly improved my life are electronic shifting, and wax lube. I haven’t had to mess around with gear indexing once since I bought a bike with electronic shifting (SRAM Rival) a couple years ago, and it always shifts perfectly. I do have to keep the batteries charged, but one…

There's also the old low-maintenance way that is common for people who commute daily on city bikes - internal gear (or single speed) hub, and just ignore your chain apart from adding oil when it starts squeaking, and get it serviced once a year or so or when a problem appears. A newer variation is belt drive instead of chain.

Re: A love letter to bicycle maintenance and repair

#99

Post by globular-toast »

kqr wrote: post #26
jstanley wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don't like cyclists because their only interaction with cyclists is when they're holding up traffic.

This one surprises me because it seems far more common to me that cars hold up traffic than bicycles. When you look at images of traffic jams it's almost always other cars in the way, not bicycles. I suppose maybe it's a city/countryside thing? Cars are great at long straights, but they take forever to safely clear an intersection compared to a bicycle -- and they block most of the road while they do.

Exactly. Being "stuck in traffic" is a car thing. Pedestrians and cyclists are literally never "stuck in traffic".

Re: A love letter to bicycle maintenance and repair

#100

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

agumonkey wrote: post #73
BrianHenryIE wrote: post #3

Cycling is a joy. When I experience / see people diss cyclists, I'm sad for them. It implies they cannot empathise with others (me). My physical and mental health are better thanks to cycling.

I'm a part-time cyclist (I stopped using cars 5 years ago) but after seeing a few bad ones on youtube videos I can understand the rage sometimes. They just cut anywhere without any regards for traffic. That said a lot of people are crazy on roads, motorbikes, cars too (probably more often and more dangerously).

I take a different attitude towards seeing unruly cyclists - for me, it's about damage limitation. Assuming that 5-10% of people are idiots and behave like idiots on the road, we want to ensure that they aren't behind the driving wheel of a car as that's 2 tonnes of speeding metal that causes a lot of damage to others when driven by an idiot. We want to take those idiots and get them onto bicycles as their speed and mass will be drastically lower and also they'll be likely to reap the rewards of cycling like an idiot which usually ends up hurting the cyclist more than anyone else (even hitting a pedestrian will often result in the cyclist coming worse off).

So, every idiot cyclist you see is an idiot not in a car and thus a reason to celebrate them.

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