Bicycles

3127 readers

13 users here now

Welcome to [email protected]

A place to share our love of all things with two wheels and pedals. This is an inclusive, non-judgemental community. All types of cyclists are accepted here; whether you're a commuter, a roadie, a MTB enthusiast, a fixie freak, a crusty xbiking hoarder, in the middle of an epic across-the-world bicycle tour, or any other type of cyclist!

Community Rules

No bigotry - including racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia.
Be respectful. Everyone should feel welcome here.
No porn.
No ads / spamming.
Ride bikes

Other cycling-related communities

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Bike Improvements/Restoration - What Order? (lemmy.world)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

28 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I recently bought a junk bike. I want to slowly fix it up myself for two reasons: 1. To have a nicer bike. 2. To learn about bike maintenance. I'd like to improve it slowly (weeks or months) while keeping it functional. What order should I consider improvements?

I'll elaborate. When I first bought the bike, I tuned the brakes (linear pull). I struggled. I realized brake tuning was difficult because my wheel wasn't aligned. In retrospect, I should have straightened/replaced the wheel before tuning the brakes. I'm wondering if there are any insights you could provide about the order I should tackle this project (e.g., wheel alightment before brakes).

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The absolute best thing I ever did in regards to figuring out bike maintenance was to buy a really crappy bike and just try to fix it, similar to what you’ve done. I went into it with the attitude of “if I break stuff, that’s fine, it was super cheap and old anyways” and wasn’t imagining I’d actually get a sound bike out of it. I used park tool YouTube videos mostly, and from that bike (and a few others) I learned how to do pretty much everything maintenance-related short of redoing the seals in a mountain bike fork (and that’s likely coming up soon). Wheel truing is tough but absolutely doable - again, but a really cheap bike (marketplace special), take the wheels off and apart, and just try to get them back together - that’ll force you to true them. Park tool again was an awesome resource for that.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

You've hit the nail on the head. This describes my mindset. Thanks for the encouragement.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

For sure! I’m not always the best at responding immediately, but if you’ve got any other questions, feel free to chat me.