DIY bicyce repair anyone?

[molehill]

What you are describing is how many of us older persons started mending our cars. From the late 60s onwards we purchased assorted tools(Britool spanners etc. No metric nonsenses, which means they are all redundant now) and a Haynes manual and set about removing the cylinder head from out mini 😱.

Fun or not whilst it lasted, but it has given me a hatred of bike mechanics, I honestly cannot be effed with it. Chuck the bike in the shed till it breaks and I’m forced to get my BS spanners out 🫣.

Why I loved fell running, simple and no mechanics.

[anthonykay]

All this talk of bottom brackets reminds me that the only occasion when I missed a fell race due to transport failure on the way there, was due to catastrophic failure of a bottom bracket.

On bike maintenance more generally: I can mend a puncture, I can replace brake blocks, but just about everything else goes to the bike shop to be fixed.

[mr brightside]

All this talk of creaking reminds me of the long standing mystery creak on my C50. It progressed to jumping out of gear when you got out of the saddle, so after some head scratching on the hill road above Ilkley I discovered the rear skewer had been incorrectly set for tightness, leading to the coefficient of static friction between the components being exceeded and the cassette swinging out of line. I had used the minimum tightness I felt was necessary with it being an ally dropout, which wasn't enough. Never had it with steel on steel.

[Mark G]

Well we managed between us to replace a broken spoke on my friends bike last Sunday. The hardest part of the job was unscrewing a spare from my frame where it had happily seized quite tightly after not being needed fir years. A few miles later another broke - front wheel this time. We were both quite heavily loaded but neither of us have had one break before so two in one day on different wheels only a few miles apart is strange. I went to get my flexispoke out of my toolkit only to realise it was in another toolkit on a different bike. We only had a few miles left to go by then so we cracked on and nothing bad happened.

[anthonykay]

Well we managed between us to replace a broken spoke on my friends bike last Sunday. The hardest part of the job was unscrewing a spare from my frame where it had happily seized quite tightly after not being needed fir years. A few miles later another broke - front wheel this time. We were both quite heavily loaded but neither of us have had one break before so two in one day on different wheels only a few miles apart is strange. I went to get my flexispoke out of my toolkit only to realise it was in another toolkit on a different bike. We only had a few miles left to go by then so we cracked on and nothing bad happened.

This brings back memories of a lovely June evening in 1994. I had been referred to a podiatrist in Northampton for a running injury, so I had taken the opportunity of a cycle ride: 50 miles to go down there on country lanes, and now I was returning by a more direct route, 44 miles. A spoke broke in my rear wheel; and then another. I think four had gone by the time I returned to Loughborough, and yet the wheel had remained sufficiently circular to not cause any problems.