I’m not very mechanically minded but managed to put my Soul together myself. I was rather nervous on the first ride but it went fine fortunately, apart from a pad axel screw falling out on the final climb.

My forks need a service in the near future, not sure if I fancy doing them or not. Headsets are another thing I’m not keen on without buying a tool.

Just out of interest. For the non-mechanical types – what did you play with as a kid? Did you not have meccano or lego? Or ever help your dad or grandad do diy/service the car?

I loved meccano and lego, and spent half my life in giant graveyards for commercial and military vehicles.. the other half I spent drawing, fishing, climbing trees, exploring rivers and streams, riding my bike and finding ingenious new ways to make my brother’s life a misery..

The fact is that my stepdad was a very angry workaholic spanner monkey.. usually stripped to the waist and streaked with a thick layer of blood and oil..
His workshop was a treasure trove, but if we were ever caught trying to sneak in there we were likely to get a heavy object launched at us with a volley of swear words.. and much, much worse if he caught hold of us..
He never really seemed to fix anything either.. he just uncovered more problems..

He’d head out there at 7pm when he got home.. you’d hear him spannering and polishing and machining, but by 2am all you’d hear is swearing and the clang of a lump hammer.. it all made it seem a very difficult skill to master..

It put me right off the whole thing really, and gave me a rather dim stereotypical view of mechanics in general for years and years

oliverd1981 – Member
I don’t think any of my bikes hasn’t been stripped to the frame and had a fairly healthy parts transplant at some point. 9 times out of ten it’s disappointingly straightforward, lots of the little jobs aren’t even worth brewing a coffee or warming up the garage for.

just needs care and forethought.
This ^ It often takes me a lot longer to consider, purchase and receive parts/consumables/materials than it does to use them.

This. It took a long time to order all the bits to go on the Canyon, especially as I wanted to run it XT 2×10 (bargain chainset) but it needed a dedicated direct mount front mech, which no one was selling at the time. I finally managed to find one, but it delayed the build by several weeks. Once I had all the bits I built it in about five hours, until I cut the wrong length of brake hose. 🙁

The Cotic was more straightforward, as I only needed a couple of upgrades, and stripped the donor bike in about an hour. The complete build took less than four hours, but has since been re-fettled with a 2×9 conversion and SLX brakes.

I wouldn’t be happy riding a bike I didn’t put together myself.

It took 5 weeks to get all the bits together for NrSchmancy and took 1 day to fit all together. The only thing that took the time was retuning the tv in the bike room.
That’s from a frame only build, building wheels (took one night) and assembly on one very wet Sunday.
It is a 29erSS though, so no suspension woes or gear’idge to worry about.
I know every part of it, it’s how I like me bikes.
Built my roadie too.

It ain’t that hard folks.

I love diy bike builds they are so satisfying to the point some times id rather go play in the gaurage than ride the things i build 😆

I do pretty much all of my own bike mechanicin’ except for truing wheels. I also had the LBS press in my Works slack headset as it was a Ti frame, and also had them service my suspension once.

The main advantage is that you can usually do the fix or fit the part yourself without having to make 2 trips to the bike shop and be without the bike for a while.

The bike is always running perfect when the weather is crap or I don’t have time to ride. But something always needs attention when the weather is nice, and leaving the bike in the shop for a few days = missed riding.

Started doing things on my car myself as I felt a few times I had taken it to a garage and they hadn’t done what I had asked or solved the problems.

In future I spent the labour costs I would have given the garage on my own tools and taught myself with help from a few friends and the internet.

Teaching myself push bikes now, pretty simple compared to gearboxes and similar, but can be fiddly with all the small parts. Not done anything like wheel building, but fitting/bleeding brakes, fitting new drivetrain, pedals etc etc. Not tried indexing gears yet!

I spent the best part of my childhood tinkering with bikes, old frames, wheels found in skips, parts aquired from a friends dad who worked at Raleigh , our garage was always full of parts and part builds
Before that meccano , lego and Bayco fed my hunger for building things
All my school reports said I would become a mechanic or something as I excelled in Motor Vehicle engineering and Metalwork- so I became a supermarket manager!!
Anyhow I only got back into bikes about two years ago but that childhood of tinkering gave me a good grounding when I started spannering again, and thank god cotter pins are a thing of the past !! I used to kill them every ride once I did a few jumps and my cranks would end up at 5 to 6

I have to add one thing..

Tubeless..

I spent one very frustrating evening trying to seat beads on rims..

I’ve bailed and gone to tubes for the time being, MrSchmancy is off to my LBS for that most frustrating of “mechanical” of issues.

I so can’t be bothered.

I’m doing a frame swap on my orange five which should be a good way to learn. Already done crank swaps etc but all off then all back on again should teach me quite a bit while also being relatively easy as I’ll know where all the bits came from.

I have got to the point where my first part build will now move forward using the power of leg and pedal unfortunately I am completely screwed regarding the rear mech and possibly chain length. 1st I couldn’t get t into the big ring at the back now I can’t get it to move to any of the first 3 rings. Not sure if. Have made the chain t short now but a completely flummoxed and a little frustrated. So close but no cigar folks!

John you’re getting into a tizzy. Step back, take a breath, chill out for a mo.

This is a doddle. Go back to first principles and start over.

Chain length is here: http://www.parktool.com/blog/repair-help/chain-length-sizing

Splice some links back into your chain if you’ve made it too short.

Rear derailleur setup is here: http://www.parktool.com/blog/repair-help/rear-derailler-adjustments-derailleur

Follow the instructions step by step. After the first couple of times it takes 5 minutes.

Basic bike assembly is very straightforwards. You don’t see bike mechanics driving around in Ferraris do you?

ps I have three important words of advice for anyone starting out mechanicing. I will say this only once.

Don’t overtighten stuff.

Don’t overtighten stuff.

Don’t overtighten stuff.

(got that?)

So make sure things are really tight? Yes?

Thanks for the links, I have them saved for the weekend. As it happens I have managed to get on a basic maintenance course next week for a fiver as its subsidised by Sustrans. Am taking the offending article with me to make sure it’s fit to ride.