Trailside Repairs

Simpler trailside repairs for a DofE group out on their own.

Please add to my list:

1) Cable tie tyres, cable tie to replace bolts or nuts, cable tie inner tube to seal

2) Take off broken rear derailleur and shorten chain to fit middle rear sprocket

3) remove broken spoke or wrap around adjoining spoke

4) Bolt to replace broken pedal

5) gaffer tape on handlebar if broken bar grips

??

List looks good, I would perhaps add some simpler/more common/practical ones based on most frequent mishaps to affect me and my scout group (or indeed usual riding group!)? (maybe you have already covered this)
1) Replace inner tube and re-inflate tire to appropriate pressure to ride again (both valve types)
2) Patch a tube and then get riding again (inc using pump and/or CO2)
3) patch/boot hole in tire and get riding again
4) Shorten chain/remove mangled links and reconnect using magic links to get riding again (note reduction in gear capacity, esp on full sus when chain grows nuder compression)
5) Replace brake pads (esp disc, different manufacturers, remember tips like pushing pistons back in and bedding in new pad etc)
6) tighten wobbly cranks (HT2)
7) Straighten bars/stem relative to wheel with appropriate top cap and stem bolt torque
8 ) diagnose and fix ‘knocking’ front end (can be linked ot point number 7)
9) Generally know how to remove and refit both wheels from different axle types
10) Truing wheels (understanding spoke tension and how to measure adjust)

I think thats about it!

If you puncture and don’t have a spare innertube, pack the tyre with grass, bracken and mosses to get you home.

1. check the bikes before you go.

Replacing a lost cleat bolt with a brake rotor bolt

Z) apply minty arse lard to yourself…

davidtaylforth – Member
If you puncture and don’t have a spare innertube, pack the tyre with grass, bracken and mosses to get you home.

They only have a week!

Some of that sounds quite involved to me, but maybe depends on the level of award they are going for. Once you are much past punctures and cable ties, you are basically walking home aren’t you?

I think I’d try to focus on the preventative – what spares should you have, what’s likely to break, what should be serviced etc.

After that I guess the two big themes are ‘i crashed it, what now’ and ‘it broke while I was riding it, what now’. For example, I’d take a spare mech hanger, but not a mech. Cable tie stuff and gaffer tape is good, but wheel truing in the field seems a bit involved to me.

5) and 10) good but trueing a wheel, maybe not.

Luckily, with discs they tend not to be effected by a buckle. Some of the fleet have quite a tight tolerance of tread to frame at the rear wheels. So slight buckle is noticeable.

All the bikes are hardtails. The trailers are BOB IBEX ones so the group are used to being careful with the pins and they puncture often even with the shock.

Training. They have done a lot. Some of the group have done up to RED level and weekly class on and off since June. So quite well trained. They know M checks, fixing punctures on the trail (not with CO2 cannisters as too risky with frost burns).

Thanks

Bob Ibex. Pins eh? Take a load of spares, easily made beforehand from old spokes. Attach spare pins to the bottle mounts on the trailers, put more in the bags. I lost one in a snowdrift I had to carry through once. In the dark. In a blizzard. It was an emotional moment.

You could just use this.

http://www.parktool.com/blog/calvins-corner/repairing-on-the-ride

See if you can get hold of a MBLA Level 2 ride leader manual. It goes through a good level of required knowledge for trailside repairs when leading rides. No point in reinventing a wheel…

They know M checks, fixing punctures on the trail (not with CO2 cannisters as too risky with frost burns).

Teach them how to use them properly then.
I was going to suggest the MBLA also, it’s very comprehensive but for DofE part of it would be IMHO be about being able to patch and continue to a point but having solid Plan B route and escape/curtailment options and knowing when to use them – IE all tubes gone, not enough patches then not the time to head out into the 30km no escape area.

Always carry a spare mech hanger and correct tool for it’s bolts, a 6″ square of damp-proof course for tyre patching, a pr. of 1/2 worn brake pads (they fit easier than new ones when things are going wrong), and a chain splitting tool (quick links are excellent, but you still need to be able to remove the damaged links to replace them), but the most obvious is the ability to use/fit any of the above (cue the story of 15 mile walk with a broken chain, because the rider didn’t know how to use his chain tool).

Does your No. 2 actually work? Ime if you’ve removed the mech and cut the chain to run on a middle sprocket it’ll just migrate to the smallest cog. Unless you use the broken mech to act as a guide to keep it on a mid cassette sprocket.

* cable tie the cassette to the spokes when the pawls in your XT freehub break
* learn how to fix stuff in the dark

qwerty, IIRC when I have done this before is not migration to the smallest cog, but up the cassette to larger cogs (which actually causes more hassle) as the ramps etc ‘want’ the chain to go that way.

Solution was to put zip ties around the next sprocket up to prevent chain from moving.

I had an experience with your no2 scenario on shimano 10spd. It didn’t work. The chain kept climbing up the heavily ramped and sculpted cassette teeth to the bigger cog effectively, slamming the drive train into a no go system. I could only freewheel downhill. Better taking a spare rear hanger and hope the rear mech survived the unwanted interface.

A light coloured cloth/shirt to put under the area you are working on as you are bound to drop half a quick link, bolt, etc. and you aren’t going to find it in the grass or gravel. Cloth is better than plastic as there’s less chance of things bouncing. Not that it’s ever happened to me of course. 🙄

Broken mech cable – use what’s left threaded backwards through the derailleur and clamped at a suitable position for a ‘get you home’ singlespeed gear (see GMBN trail repairs video).

a DofE group out on their own.

For the less mechanically minded in the group, perhaps a test on how to light a fire, some simple butchery skills and a ready reckoner to estimate the body fat percentage of their peers wouldn’t go amiss.

You know, just in case they get stranded for a bit.

2) Does work as I did it on my Hardtail when I broke my derailleur in Glen Garr/Little Glenshee.

Remember as I said this is NOT adults so they don’t need all the MBLA L2 manual skills. They will be 14yrs old and just fixing on the trail to get going, hopefully.

Thanks for the sensible responses.

^^^^ the fixes you list in your OP are generally at or beyond the level of those things covered in the MBLA L2 handbook, so I’d still say it would be a good starting point for you.

Remember as I said this is NOT adults so they don’t need all the MBLA L2 manual skills. They will be 14yrs old and just fixing on the trail to get going, hopefully.

They are self sufficient 14 yr olds. Whilst it’s slightly different from being a leader responsible for others they need to be able to cope. They need the skills to either get going or get them to a bail out point. They probably don’t have the mechanical knowledge for effective improvisation, and IME if you are within a few miles of a road it can be just as quick to walk / scooter out than try to remove the mech and shorten chain etc. Realistically that persons ride is over unless it’s the end of the trip anyway. Teenagers with trailers and no gears is not going to go well. At 14, they’ll be doing bronze so aren’t really that far from get out of jail options.

Most survivable failures like bearing wear, spokes going etc they just need to understand something is wrong and to take it easy. They won’t be jumping with trailers etc anyway. Make sure that if they are doing river crossing in training or practice that everything is properly serviced afterwards.