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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

#131

Post by freetime2 »

fulafel wrote: post #98
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.

Yup I have a commuter bike with a belt and internal hub and I absolutely love it. Basically zero maintenance.

I think all city bikes should be belt and internal hub.

Re: A love letter to bicycle maintenance and repair

#132

Post by discreteevent »

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 no need to degrease your chain. In fact kmc recommend that you don't. Just give it a wipe once a week and apply a little oil. Maybe scrape some of the crap off the sprockets every few months.

Re: A love letter to bicycle maintenance and repair

#133

Post by erie »

When you balance your ride in the back seat of a bicycle driven by a tiny teenager half your weight, it means you truly know how a bicycle goes. I think the Danes are the top cyclists nation, I remember when I offered the principal of orphan school girls, to make an international call from my house instead of waiting for hours at the post office of my town in Syria back in the 70's, she encouraged me to ride my bicycle and not to worry about her riding behind me, I was scared from the imbalance but there was none, the looks and whistle of some people were a many though. The sight of 15 year old me pedaling while a big blond woman sitting behind me was amazing.

Re: A love letter to bicycle maintenance and repair

#134

Post by theoleksii »

I can totally relate to that! But in my case it's airplane ownership and maintenance. One day I'm staring at my IDE, and find myself thinking about how I'm going to fix that nasty fuel smell in the cockpit. And when it's all done after a day on the apron—that's the high point!

And small airplane maintenance isn't that complex actually. Modern cars are way more complex.

Re: A love letter to bicycle maintenance and repair

#135

Post by agumonkey »

Ringz wrote: post #95
agumonkey wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wan…

I agree too, the chance of death with bikes is ultra low. A car is a 1 ton metal moving press ...

But since I got my driver licence, I understand the anger, bikers/cyclist can come at any angle / corner and you'll feel responsible if you hit them (it made me feel weird realising this as a cyclist), they don't have to respect as much rules.

That's why my heuristic is to stay smooth and try to make the road as a cool shared space (gesture to communicate you took driver nearby into account) when you have to use it.

I still need to buy a dashcam though.. cause there's always a risk of crazy angry car driver.

Re: A love letter to bicycle maintenance and repair

#137

Post by stavros »

UnserMannInK wrote: post #129
stavros wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but you realize that comparing a bike to a car is a bit ridiculous, right? They're for very different use cases.

I agree. But if the use case is „take one person for a <10km commute“ then the comparison is fair.

True, but if those are your only needs, a car is massive overkill.

Re: A love letter to bicycle maintenance and repair

#138

Post by fho »

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?

It's not the clutch ... It's 100+ €/h for a skilled worker who replaced that clutch.

Re: A love letter to bicycle maintenance and repair

#139

Post by fho »

stavros wrote: post #137
UnserMannInK wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. But if the use case is „take one person for a <10km commute“ then the comparison is fair.

True, but if those are your only needs, a car is massive overkill.

They are complementary. I don't love riding bikes, but if the choice is riding a bike for 7 minutes through some parks or driving a car for 15 minutes because I can't take the shortcuts and an stuck in traffic ... I'd rather commute by bike

On the other hand my commute is now 50km one way, which is just not possible by bike.

Re: A love letter to bicycle maintenance and repair

#140

Post by The_Colonel »

stavros wrote: post #85
dailykoder wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Bikes are for everybody. You can ride a beat up bike for years with just basic knowledge, l That is true. But what changed most sceptics, that i met, mind were bikes that actually worked. I understand the fear when people see the price tag and think they could buy a second hand car for that, but once they sit on a good bike they just enjoy it. And if they then learn how to do basic maintenance themselves so that it…

I have a shitty bike that I bought for 150 € ten years ago. It creaks everywhere, is hard to ride, and a thief once actually moved it out of the way to steal the bike behind it. I use it every day but I'm not going to get a better one, because I don't want to be constantly worried that someone will steal it. I want to use it as transportation, leave it wherever, and know that it will still be there because it's not w…

I love this aspect of old beaten things.

A couple of years ago, I've found a gem of a bike. It looked maybe 15-20 years old and was clearly heavily used - frame was full of scratches and such. The color scheme was pretty ugly and was just a tad too small for an adult. But I noticed that all the components were actually decent - mostly Shimano XT, obviously very old models. After servicing it, it rode very well and I didn't have to worry about thiefs since it was pretty cheap and even more cheap looking. I still locked it, but the peace of mind was nice.

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