A love letter to bicycle maintenance and repair
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Re: A love letter to bicycle maintenance and repair
#2Sadly, many parts of modern mountain bikes seem to be less durable and not repairable. For most of the stuff I can't or don't want/have time to do, I take into the shop. And generally, they throw up their hands and say it needs to be replaced. Did that with two dropper posts this week. (One needed a rebuild that would cost more than replacement. The other had a (luckily under warranty) faulty cartridge).
I will also say that e-bikes are much more fun than I would have thought. And not very serviceable.
Re: A love letter to bicycle maintenance and repair
#3Cycling 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.
Re: A love letter to bicycle maintenance and repair
#4Thankful I learned to fix a flat tire at 5 and steadily built experience in bike repair since, from where my first moped and car repairs felt like basic extensions…
The blog comes very close to quoting ‘zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance’ -I wonder if the author read that…
Re: A love letter to bicycle maintenance and repair
#5Cycling 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.
When it's broken, fix your bike - because when you're broken, your bike will fix you.
Re: A love letter to bicycle maintenance and repair
#6Sadly, many parts of modern mountain bikes seem to be less durable and not repairable. For most of the stuff I can't or don't want/have time to do, I take into the shop. And generally, they throw up their hands and say it needs to be replaced. Did that with two dropper posts this week. (One needed a rebuild that would cost more than replacement. The other had a (luckily under warranty) faulty cartridge). I will also…
You have to factor in labor costs. The marvel of modern logistics is that it's often cheaper to ship a new part over from across the Pacific than it is to do a proper repair where the faulty part is taken apart and hand repaired.
Take a look at the local rate of machinists and mechanical engineers and then decide whether you truly want to have your bike part "repaired".
Re: A love letter to bicycle maintenance and repair
#7Thankful I learned to fix a flat tire at 5 and steadily built experience in bike repair since, from where my first moped and car repairs felt like basic extensions… The blog comes very close to quoting ‘zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance’ -I wonder if the author read that…
> The blog comes very close to quoting ‘zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance’ -I wonder if the author read that…
I did! But I did so long before I started with bike repair, so at that time I couldn't really connect with it. Thank you for reminding me that I should give it a second read!
Re: A love letter to bicycle maintenance and repair
#8Beautifully 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 massively reduced.
I love the concept of bicycles that are deliberately built to be low maintenance.
Re: A love letter to bicycle maintenance and repair
#9Beautifully 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…
Priority Continuum Onyx by any chance? Those things are absolute beasts. Fantastic commuter bikes.
Re: A love letter to bicycle maintenance and repair
#10Cycling 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.
People don't like cyclists because their only interaction with cyclists is when they're holding up traffic.