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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

#101

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

jstanley wrote: post #10
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.

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

It's very rare for cyclists to be holding up traffic for anything more than a few seconds and usually only in specific scenarios (e.g. going up a hill on a narrow road). It's far more common for motorised vehicle congestion to be the thing adding delays to people's journeys and bizarrely, there's a common mindset amongst drivers to always want to overtake cyclists even when just a cursory glance ahead shows that they can only make a tiny bit of progress until they join the queue at the next junction. It's referred to as Must Get In Front (MGIF) and annoys me when cycling as often an unsafe overtake will be performed by a driver and then I'll go filtering past them a few seconds later - why overtake when it makes no difference to your journey time?

Re: A love letter to bicycle maintenance and repair

#102

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

globular-toast wrote: post #99
kqr wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

You're mainly correct, but if you have a look at busy times in a bike-oriented city such as Copenhagen then there are big queues of bikes/trikes at traffic lights. Maybe "paused in traffic" would be a better description of them though.

Re: A love letter to bicycle maintenance and repair

#103

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

eptcyka wrote: post #77
kqr wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Having a bunch of cyclists take up a whole lane width wise will always be frustrating. I bike every day and drive reatively rarely, but I understand the frustration with cyclists. I am also scared to death that one day I’ll turn a corner on a country road and get to decide between heading into oncoming traffic or plowing a group of cycling buddies doing 75% of the speed other vehicles normally will do on said country…

Why go so fast that you can't stop in the distance you can see to be clear? That's just poor driving.

Re: A love letter to bicycle maintenance and repair

#104

Post by globular-toast »

The modern bicycle is the pinnacle of personal transport technology. It's yet to be surpassed. Unfortunately unbridled consumption of fossil fuels has made cars economical enough that you can't cycle anywhere any more. I heard people are getting into gravel biking now because the road is too unpleasant.

I maintain a small but shrinking amount of hope that we might be able to get rid of cars. Sometimes I think it's getting better, but then I remember how much had already been ceded to them in just my lifetime. Maybe when I'm old it will be possible to cycle around safely and young people will know true freedom.

Repairing bicycles is part of that freedom really. You don't a lot of space or super expensive tools. There's no toxic liquids to deal with. I rebuilt a bike from the frame up around 2006 without any help from YouTube. I realised later I did a lot of it wrong as I was essentially guessing, but I still rode it for many hundreds of miles.

Re: A love letter to bicycle maintenance and repair

#105

Post by jpgvm »

Wrenching on a motorcycle is similarly rewarding/zen. A little more complex than a bicycle and sometimes requiring some more specialist tools but otherwise pretty much the same thing.

Especially older, carbureted motorcycles with minimal electronics. You can often work everything out and get them going like new again with just some elbow grease and replacing perishables like fluids, seals, gaskets, etc.

Not to mention it's fun riding a bike that previously didn't even kick over before it came into your hands.

Re: A love letter to bicycle maintenance and repair

#106

Post by bluescrn »

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?

Post-inflation labour cost most likely. The clutch will be a small fraction of that.

Re: A love letter to bicycle maintenance and repair

#107

Post by david-gpu »

AlunAlun wrote: post #43

I suspect what the author takes joy from is more the satisfaction of learning a new skill. Like many things, bike maintenance eventually becomes a chore. Most of my (many) bikes over the last 30 years have been built from the ground up, including the wheels. And I don’t (or won’t) trust any shop mechanic to touch them. But now, the thought of doing any sort of maintenance fills me with dread - I want to ride my bikes…

> I want to ride my bikes, not spend hours fiddling with brake hydraulics and suspension seals!

Not a problem! Why not...

> I don’t (or won’t) trust any shop mechanic to touch them

Oh. That explains it.

Have you considered reverting to simpler bicycles that require less frequent and simpler maintenance. Rigid frame, cable-actuated brakes, possibly a gearbox?

Re: A love letter to bicycle maintenance and repair

#108

Post by nwatson »

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 bought a bicycle with a Pinion gear box and a Gates carbon belt drive. No lube, no derailleur, no chain falling off, no maintenance, hose off after a muddy ride. The belt will last 3x longer than a chain presumably.

EDIT: autocorrect

Re: A love letter to bicycle maintenance and repair

#109

Post by TeMPOraL »

victorstanciu wrote: post #11
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…

Interesting point of view, thank you! For me maintenance and repair have enhanced riding rather than diminish it. I find it's similar to how cooking enhances eating, or yard work enhances laying around the yard. Of course I hate having a malfunction while riding as much as the next guy, but I also ride with more confidence because I know I can handle pretty much anything that can go wrong, even on the go.

I'm strongly with GP on this. I wonder if this isn't some kind of broader difference between people, because I also disagree with the excellent examples you used. Cooking and yard work don't enhance my subsequent enjoyment of a good meal or relaxation - rather, I experience both to be annoying bullshit chores (ABC!) that, more often than not, I can't get myself to engage in, which means they deny the experience altogether instead of enhancing it.

Makes me think of the old, well-known saying, that you should focus on the journey rather than destination. In my mind, it does not compute. I often wonder if I'm broken somehow.

Re: A love letter to bicycle maintenance and repair

#110

Post by david-gpu »

criddell wrote: post #97
bombela wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Yeah, the person you replied to thinks of cycling as a sport, not as a form of transportation. That is the sorry state of affairs in North America and Australia.

Edit: I see now that you are in TX, so this isn't news to you.

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