Bike Maintenance

Sometimes I harp. If I’m doing so now, I ask for your forgiveness in advance.

I believe in empowerment. This is a gag-me word that has found its way into our modern lexicon, and it embarrasses me to use it. I stoop to it now, though, to once again urge Slowtwitch readers to get under the hood of their bicycles and tinker.

One reason my admonitions may go unheeded is fear of failure. In this case, failure may not just mean you fail to fix the bike, but that the small repair you tried to effect may pale in comparison to the new problem your attempt at repair has created. To this I say phooey, which is easy for me to say since it is your bike and not mine.

Others did boldly go where no Ironman has gone before, exploring the galaxy of tools that are made available to those who would work on bicycles. It’s not a painless journey. But you always return in one piece––though in an attempt to right the wrongs of the universe sometimes your Enterprise does sustain some friendly fire.

Perhaps a story or two from those who’ve gone there and returned may help. Glen Spiller, owner/partner of Sinclair Imports, the U.S.-based seller of Carnac bicycle shoes (among other very fine brands), says:

Your story about The Idiots guide to VW's reminds me of the first job I got as a bicycle mechanic. It was at Collage Cycle in Oakland––long since gone––and Bruce Gordon was managing the store at the time (1971 or 1972). I had previously worked briefly in sales at Turin of Evanston, Ill, when I first got out of high school, but I knew absolutely nothing about bicycle mechanics, had never built a wheel, or overhauled a bearing, and I could barely fake an assembly.

Needless to say I had to exaggerate my mechanical skills to get the job. But when Elmer the cigar smoking owner hired me I immediately went to the University of California library and tried to memorize "Anybody's Bike Book," which you may remember, and was definitely to bicycle mechanics what "The Idiots Guide" was to VW mechanics.

I lasted about two weeks on the job before Bruce fired me for being so incompetent, but I gained enough experience during the 2-week period to get an apprentice job at The Square Wheel in Berkeley and later at Velo Sport––and later returning to manage the Square Wheel. I was so in love with cycling and bicycles at the time, and I have been in the industry ever since.

I include Glen’s story because it reminds me so much of my own. I was running a wetsuit manufacturing company I owned, and knew very little about how to work on bikes. But, I wanted to build bikes, because I knew there was a better bike design out there that nobody else wanted to build. I found a welder and we were off and running.

What to do with the frames, though? Surely I would need some tools to chase the threads, face things, press this, pull that, and install any of the various bicycle-specific parts. I had no more clue about all this than the least clued-in among you.

I called up a bike mechanic I knew at a bike shop––a guy who seemed pretty competent to me. I asked him for a list of every tool I might need. I ordered them, they arrived. I had a frame in front of me, and tools beside me. I held up each tool that looked like it fit into an orifice against the various orifices on the frame until I found a match.

That’s how it started. I suppose I should’ve gotten Anybody’s Bike Book––or its equivalent––but I was much too attention deficit disordered for that.

In truth I can tell you that I ruined very few frames. None that I can remember, in fact. (Perhaps a fork or two).

Just think of it this way: What’s the worst that can happen?

If these stories don’t sway you, I still say Go For It. Perhaps you might start smaller, working with tools that don’t interface with overly expensive parts. Change your own chain, for example, and your own stems, grease what needs grease, oil that which requires oil. And, of course, clean the darn thing. I’ve never heard of anybody damaging his or her frame with a rag.

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