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The other day I took a bike ride with Madalene and Barb. The ride was fun, but it served to alert me to the poor mechanical condition of my bike. Its a nice bike, a GT aluminum frame mountain bike with a Shimano STX drive train, hard tail, and hard fork. However, the bike had been purchased used and the previous owner had unceremoniously sanded the paint off. This uglified the bike quite a bit, serving to protect it from theft, thankfully.

The bike has been given some hard use, including single track downhill, urban curb assault, hard trail riding, and even some river fording and surf riding. All of these things add up to a great amount of wear on a bike. My derailleurs are sadly out of alignment, and in great need of overhaul. The brakes were shredded, and also in need of overhaul. The cables are rusted and the housings are coming apart. My front hub was dry as a bone, having been thoroughly infiltrated with water and grit from the river fording. The whole bike creaked and ground as I rode it, and if you know anything about the mechanical world, you know that noise = friction, and friction = wear. I replaced the chain a while back because the original one broke. You are supposed to replace all your cogs and chainrings at the same time as the chain, but I couldn’t do this for cost reasons, so the new chain is having its way with the old cogs, shredding them at a furious rate.

I’ve also noticed a grinding sound coming from the crank, indicating that the bottom bracket has probably been infiltrated in the same way as the hubs. Unfortunately, that will require the purchase of some tools for me to properly overhaul. Also, I’ve noticed that the cogs on the rear cassette wobble back and forth now. Not cool. Oh well, that cassette was probably due for replacement anyway. I just hope that the hub is OK.

One thing about working on a bike, or any mechanical thing, really, is that if you fix one thing, it results in a cascade of stuff you have to do to complete the repair. For instance, my bike works at the moment, but if I investigate the rear hub, I may find that the cogs are shot, and that I need to replace the cassette. Then, as I’m opening the cassette, I may find that the freehub is damaged. If the freehub is damaged I’ll need a new hub, but if I replace the hub I’ll need to use new spokes and buy a new rim, since its not a good idea to reuse rims of this age. Of course, I won’t know for sure until I actually dismantle it. Risky business. The same is true with nearly all of the bike. If I replace the cables and housings (which should be pretty easy) I may find that the derailleur is too far gone and needs to be replaced too.

I’m going slowly, overhauling bit by bit as I move over the bike, hoping to get it all working with a minimal cost outlay (so far, 5$ for hub cones, 1.50$ for bearings and a few dollars for tools, not too bad).

Tonight I overhauled the front hub (easier than I expected, though touchy to adjust), and overhauled the front brake calipers, fully readjusting the brakes on the way. Unfortunately, my front rim is out of true, meaning I couldn’t perfectly adjust the brakes, having to live with some extra slack to make up for the wobbling wheel. Thats another thing I have to learn how to do, true up wheels… That was my goal for tonight. The next step is overhauling the rear brakes, and doing a full adjustment of the derailleurs. Then I replace the cables and housings. Then cassettes and rear wheels, then chain rings and the bottom bracket. Then headset, stem and shift/brake levers. Then, uh, I hope that will be it!

I’ve found that working on my bike is fairly enjoyable. It requires several specialized tools, which annoys me, but the fact that the entire workings are visible to me makes it enjoyable to work it over, just getting greasy, and feeling worn, gritty parts turn to smoothly operating machines with your gentle touch. I recommend it! Its actually quite easy to get into bike maintenance on your own. Nearly anyone can do basic things like adjusting brakes, replacing tires and chains, lubricating and cleaning parts, and so on. The basic tune up offered by your local bike shop is something that nearly anyone can do if they try. Then, its just a quick jump to doing more advanced work, like rebuilding hubs and overhauling brake systems. You may find yourself doing nearly all the work on your bike short of things like wheel truing that require specialized tools. And maybe you’ll even find yourself doing those things! Its certainly addictive.

For an excellent shop manual, I recommend this Barnett’s manual that is available online in PDF form. The entire manual is over 300 double sided pages, and is incredibly detailed. You can find it at the BikeForums.net Mechanics forum. The entire forum is actually a great resource, with loads of information discussed in the past and available through the ‘search’ function, and lots of helpful people who will try to answer your questions for you. You can also check out books from your local library that will get you started on basic bike mechanic’in. Enjoy!

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