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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

#111

Post by jillesvangurp »

iamthemonster wrote: post #8

Beautifully written, but I couldn't disagree more. Bicycle maintenance is an annoying chore to me that gets in the way of my enjoyment of cycling. I even have good bicycle shops near me that did maintenance far quicker/cheaper/better than I would do. It just all seemed like such a hassle. I finally ended up buying a belt-drive hub-geared hydraulic-brakes medium/fat-tyre bicycle and my maintenance woes appear to be ma…

Bike leasing is a thing now. Here in Berlin, I've used Swapfiets for a while. You pay something like 25 euros a month and in return you get a decent bike to ride (comfortable, 6 gears, good brakes, etc.). If there are any issues, you just go to store and get a freshly serviced one. Zero hassle. I've done this for minor rattles, the gears feeling a bit loose, etc. They actually remind people to come in for a fresh bike once in a while because they know these things need maintenance.

You end up spending about 300/year. And for that money you have no need to worry about repairs. Or theft. These things seem to be immune to being stolen. Both those things are big issues because repairs are expensive if you don't do them yourself and bike theft means you need to replace them (or pay extra for insurance) when that happens and it also means that using a nice bike to get around is risky.

With Swapfiets, I never worried about theft. You just lock it and the bike thieves apparently ignore them as they are probably hard to sell on (as they are very recognizable). I've done that all over Berlin, including many of the hot spots where I'd normally be reluctant to leave anything of value unattended.

Re: A love letter to bicycle maintenance and repair

#112

Post by TaylorAlexander »

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 pulled a rusted 2011 Fuji mountain bike out of the mud at burning man and spent the fall replacing every part on it except the frame, fork, and seat. I set up craigslist alerts for bike parts in my area, explored the local bike salvage shops, and found deals like a $35 dropper post that only needed a $6 bushing to be good as new. I installed hydraulic brakes with huge rotors, got the tires I wanted, and had an absolute blast wrenching on it while listening to Flip Bike videos on YouTube. I really found out how much I love wrenching on bikes that fall. After years of only road biking since my mountain bike was stolen and then I converted my new mountain bike to an electric city street runner, I finally had an analog mountain bike again and I built it all up myself. It was wonderful and the first mountain ride (my first in years) was transcendent.

But I’ve noticed that if what I want to be doing is be out riding my bike, I sure do hate it when something needs to be fixed!

Re: A love letter to bicycle maintenance and repair

#113

Post by parasti »

Thanks, this was a good read. To me, this puts a finger on a fear of mine that probably many programmers have. How do you show someone else the thing that you've built, how do you show them the work that you do and the value that it creates? To an observer, say, your own child, you're just sitting in front of a screen. There's layers upon layers of cruft that you need to first learn to understand what your parent is doing there. A physical thing is easy - you can just show them that thing that you made.

Re: A love letter to bicycle maintenance and repair

#114

Post by zikduruqe »

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…

Just wait until you hot wax your chain. Take the chain off your bike, drop it into a crock pot full of wax, take a nap, wake up, put chain back on bike.

I personally love working on bikes. I'd replace my behind the keyboard all day tech job in a split second, if I could afford to do so.

Clean after every ride? That's way overkill. I only clean my bike when I need to re-wax my chain.

Re: A love letter to bicycle maintenance and repair

#115

Post by hagbard_c »

anal_reactor wrote: post #83
whazor wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A decent second hand bike costs 80 euros in The Netherlands

In the Netherlands bikes are free if you have an angle grinder lol

Hm, yes, 'lol'. That has not been my reaction when I found my bike missing.

In rural Sweden - where I now live - they're free when you find them in the ditch, notify the police about your find with identifying data like frame number etc and wait for 3 months. Assuming that the bike does not have a label identifying the owner - in which case you should contact him/her - they'll send you a letter confirming you're now the owner. Those bikes often need some work - how does a 30-speed MTB end up chainless in a ditch in the middle of nowhere? - but that is all part of the 'game'. It is hard to get closer to re-use, reduce, re-cycle than cycling on re-used bikes.

Re: A love letter to bicycle maintenance and repair

#116

Post by UnserMannInK »

drdo wrote: post #79
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!

Do you have some exotic luxury car? What kind of clutch costs 2.2k euro?

Nothing exotic, a Peugeot Traveller van. The spare parts were 700€, rest was labor. Took a whole day to take apart the transmission/front axle and put it all together again.

Re: A love letter to bicycle maintenance and repair

#117

Post by freetime2 »

zikduruqe wrote: post #114
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…

Just wait until you hot wax your chain. Take the chain off your bike, drop it into a crock pot full of wax, take a nap, wake up, put chain back on bike. I personally love working on bikes. I'd replace my behind the keyboard all day tech job in a split second, if I could afford to do so. Clean after every ride? That's way overkill. I only clean my bike when I need to re-wax my chain.

> Clean after every ride? That's way overkill.

I tend to sweat a lot, and sweat is corrosive. If it’s not a sweaty ride, and the roads are dry, I’ll skip the cleaning sometimes.

Re: A love letter to bicycle maintenance and repair

#118

Post by thread_id »

For me personally, I cannot overstate the value I get from solving problems in the physical space and how that transends into my work as a software engineer. However, that being said I really enjoy the dynamic of software development that allows the ability to hack: start building without a clear plan, try, prototype, tear down, throw out, start again.

Re: A love letter to bicycle maintenance and repair

#119

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

zikduruqe wrote: post #114
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…

Just wait until you hot wax your chain. Take the chain off your bike, drop it into a crock pot full of wax, take a nap, wake up, put chain back on bike. I personally love working on bikes. I'd replace my behind the keyboard all day tech job in a split second, if I could afford to do so. Clean after every ride? That's way overkill. I only clean my bike when I need to re-wax my chain.

You want to be careful with leaving paraffin wax unattended - it's got a low ignition temperature.

Re: A love letter to bicycle maintenance and repair

#120

Post by p3rls »

thread_id wrote: post #118

For me personally, I cannot overstate the value I get from solving problems in the physical space and how that transends into my work as a software engineer. However, that being said I really enjoy the dynamic of software development that allows the ability to hack: start building without a clear plan, try, prototype, tear down, throw out, start again.

Ha that's why the trades have the motto: we do it nice, we do it twice :)
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