I seem to have the ability to turn even the most straightforward bike maintenance task into a bad tempered epic.
For instance, last night I had two easy jobs:
- Give the road bike a thorough clean to get rid of the road grime which had stuck to the spilled energy drink residue
- Stop the front brake squeal by sanding down the pads, lightly sanding the disc and clean up with disc brake cleaner
First job went ok but I noticed some latex on the back of the seat tube so I assumed I'd had a small real tyre puncture which the sealant successfully dealt with. Great and no sign of knicks in the tyre.
Second job went ok apart from, obviously, dropping and temporarily losing the tiny anti-rattle widget for the pad retainer bolt.
I then went for a quick test ride..and now BOTH brakes squeal like banshees and then the rear tyre puncture unsealed itself and sprayed sealant all over the back end of the bike and me....
This story is not atypical of me and doesn't include the obvious palaver of finding sufficient space to work on the bike, finding the right tools/equipment, putting the tools down and "losing" them and being just out of reach when you're on the other side of bike or lockup, or the batteries failing on the torch you are using cos the lights are shite.
So, a half-hour job turns into a multi-hour epic, again...
its infuriating but that's the best bit always some reason to tinker with it
I’m fine doing jobs I don’t have to do. For instance I recently swapped suspension and wheels from one bike to another because I wondered how they would ride. Not so good at doing jobs that actually need doing. It has taken me months to get round to replacing my trashed transmission even though all the parts were there waiting.
Hate? No, but I can procrastinate for England meaning I sometimes have to half-arse a job just to go riding and it inevitably fails in some small and annoying way...
Yes!
There was a time when i loved it. Built wheels and everything.
Couldn't give a shit now.
I don't mind, even quite enjoy, working on other people's bikes but go into a blind panic/fury if the bike I love riding isn't ready to go. Currently I am stressing about a broken spoke because I can't get one until after the bank holiday
Nope, love it. I'm just as likely to buy new bike tools as I am bike parts.
How many home mechanics have bottom bracket chasing tools, full set of bearing extractors and presses, blind bearing pullers, shock bush burnishing tools, fork bushing burnishing tools, 3 different chain wear tools, disc mount facing tool, 3 work stands to name a few.
I might have a bit of a problem.
Ask me when I have swapped rear tyres from the trainer to a normal tyre on my road bike.
And cleaned five months of salt off it.
And worked out why the gears don't change.
Hard relate but not so much hate as procrastinate.
I enjoy cleaning it properly and making it all shiny again. It's very satisfying when you scrub up a cassette, fit a newly waxed chain, have a lovely spotless frame. Very much a rainy day task.
Actually *fixing* anything, no I just take it to my LBS, buy a couple of coffees and some cake from the cafe down the street then he'll sort it for me.
I hope you pay too?!!
The level of enjoyment is directly proportional to how smoothly it goes.
Even if it is a long job, a nice calm fix/service is very satisfying.
A rapidly escalating bit of a mess, not so much.
I hate working on my own bikes at home now (I've very limited space) after being spoiled at work with a very well setup workshop.
Maybe that's the key. Have a bike shop like work area where everything is at hand and it makes life easier.
I like working on bikes almost as much as I like riding them. Except ******** internal hoses and cables.
An idea that can only have been conceived by the marketing department of the Sirius Cycle-netic Corporation who had just been commenting on cyclists and red lights on the Daily Mail letters page. Come the revolution....
No, I LOVE it!
LOVE working on my bike. HATED the two three-month stints I did running bike maintenance D of E courses! Why do kids choose to store their bikes in a swamp?
I don't hate working on my bikes but I'd sure as hell rather be riding them than working on them.
It depends on how much I want to get out on the bike or if there’s a particular ride coming up that I need it done by. If I can take my time on it rather than having time pressure then like most things, it’s far more enjoyable.
Although everything I touch does seem to turn into an Apollo 13 style mechanical epic.
I think I’d like it if I didn’t have so much other stuff to do for the family and thus working on bikes gets treated just like MTBing time (which I don’t have enough of!) So as much as possible I pay my LBS to do it (which is pretty much the only reason I’ll ever clean either bike!)
I am more than happy to pay for an expert to have the stress rather than me.
I am fine with simple stuff but prefer to delegate anything more complicated to the professionals. I guess if I was getting in serious miles and hence needing to do the more esoteric stuff regularly I might bother but most of the time its trying to remember how the hell to do something.
Back when I was a student I enjoyed it more but then (insert when I was a lad...) the bikes were a tad simpler and also I had sod all money and more free time. Whereas now I am lucky enough to be paid enough it makes more sense to pay someone to do all the time consuming stuff (basically if it takes longer to take it to the shop than do the job then its one for them).
Nah. Love working on them, mainly as it's only me working on them and building them, so everything is put together properly and works. When it doesn't work, it's easy to work out where and why it's broken.
Hate working on other people's bikes though, especially those straight from the shop/factory. Almost always something put together wrong.
Very few things cause me more rage than fixing bikes - my workstand bares the scars of my frustration.
Ironically, workingon bikes is a moderately common part of my job.
I'd rather spend an hour in excel than fixing/replacing something. I hate it.
The thing that really annoys me regarding bike maintenance is spotting something or thinking about a tweak I could do, but then doing nothing until I've decided I'm going to go for a ride and then the job makes me decide to cancel the ride.
Classic case tonight, I've not ridden in a week because of a chesty lurgy, my new ebike has so far done just 6 miles. Decide I'll try a ride at sunset, but then remember I haven't moved the bottle cage from under top tube to seat tube, concerned about bidon leaking on its side. By the time it's sorted, it doesn't seem worth heading out as it will be dark in ~30mins. Ride cancelled.
So now it's hoping on a miracle to wake and get out by 0900 tomorrow, to try and get an hour ride in before the Good Friday rain.
Nope, love it. I'm just as likely to buy new bike tools as I am bike parts.
How many home mechanics have bottom bracket chasing tools, full set of bearing extractors and presses, blind bearing pullers, shock bush burnishing tools, fork bushing burnishing tools, 3 different chain wear tools, disc mount facing tool, 3 work stands to name a few.
I might have a bit of a problem.
Yes, no, yes, no, no, yes, yes, only 2.
I'll counter with seat tube reamers, bottom bracket facing tools, bottom bracket dies, and pedal taps.
I do everything myself apart from wheel building and rear shock rebuilds. Reason being it's so far and so much hassle to get the bike to someone it's quicker to do it myself. I wouldn't say it's fun but it does mean I'm more capable of trailside fixes than mates who would just give in.
Added bonus is fixing bikes gets done away from other people.
I can see the problem, you over complicate the simple stuff,
Instead of
"This story is not atypical of me"
You could have just said "This story is typical of me"
But in reality I'd say the real problem is the lack of a beer fridge in close proximity.
This will allow you to happily spend 3 hrs over what in reality is a 20 min job 🙂
TBH I actually prefer working on the bikes to riding them sometimes!
I’m a competent mechanic and all of my bikes are well maintained to the point I can go and grab any one of them, put air in the tyres and ride them writhing 5 mins, but I don’t LOVE maintaining them. It’s just another job, but if they need something, it gets done and done fast. I hate adding things to my list.
Possibly the only job I really loathe these days is bleeding brakes on internally routed bikes. I despise having to repeat something and these things often need a few goes to get them right, especially on a road/gravel bike.
Depends what it is, and whether I have a tool. Example; I used to not look forward to cutting fork steerers and setting a star nut, but then I bought a guide and a star nut setter and what did take 30 mins and be an exercise in frustration is now 10 mins and a piece of piss.
I prefer to do preventative maintenance though rather than fixing things. So, mostly I'm swapping things rather than mending them, which to my mind isn't 'working' on my bike
Finding the space and time is the hard part. Most of what I do is rushed with a cramped space leaning over other bikes and then it’s no fun at all! And if I have enough time to do a decent stress free job I’d rather be riding
I generally enjoy it. The problem is that it gets squeezed into time slots not long enough to complete the task.
It's either cold and dark and 1/2 the time is spent moving kids toys out of the garage. Or the kids are in the garden pestering me.
I do have some now clean bottom bracket bearings ready for a regrease then to be popped back in to try and cure an intermittent creak.
I used to love it and took great pride that every ride started with a perfectly clean and maintained bike.
The I did it for a living for 6 years. In that time my bikes worked fine, but I couldn't be arsed to spend a minute more than absolutely necessary on them.
When I walked away from the bike industry I didn't really even like riding bikes let alone fixing them. I commuted on a bike that just about worked but looked like I stored it in the sea.
Four years on, the joy of riding is mostly back and am happy to work on the bikes again but only to make sure they work reliably and quietly. There's not a hope in hell that I'm going back to cleaning cassettes after every ride again, I scrape the worst of the gunk off every few months and that's it. Can I tell the difference? Yes, the chains last longer.
Oh, and OP - You don't need brake cleaner, you need a blow lamp and a degree of care to clean your discs and pads. If you aren't careful on the pads (slow heat to just hot enough to burn off the contamination) then you risk pad / backing plate separation. If you don't trust yourself on this rub with fairy liquid. But use a blow lamp on the disc, just keep it spinning so it heats evenly.
I definitely don't hate it; the key I find is making sure you always have enough time to really tinker, because any job done in rush invariably ends up going wrong.
So then I find I don't have enough time to do it properly so don't get started...
I like building and riding bikes, I cba repairing or maintaining them.
I'm not a fan. I don't mind cleaning it now and then.
But I already have hobbies that i enjoy, and bike fettling just takes time away from them.
Also i don't have a garage. My bike lives under the stairs and fixes - inevitably it's a dark winter evening - need to take place in the living room, next to the dining table, trying not to break stuff.
Also also, i rode the same bike from 1994 - 2022. It was easy to fix. I now have no idea how anything works on the new bike, except for inner tubes, and I'm not entirely convinced about those either
I now have no idea how anything works on the new bike, except for inner tubes, and I'm not entirely convinced about those either
Part of the reason I cba with fixing stuff is the tools - I still have an ISIS BB tool, a few other random bits and pieces that cost a fair bit to acquire and are now useless / superfluous to requirements.
I'm fine with general improvements, I accept that standards will change but I can't justify buying tools for stuff that won't be around in a few years time, it's a lot easier to let the bike shop buy the tools and do the repairs. And to be fair, there's actually not a lot to "repair" - kit these days is pretty reliable, just needs the occasional bit of upkeep like a brake bleed r bearing replacement and even that is infrequent.
Nope—I love working on my own bike. Nine times out of ten times it’s cheaper to just buy the tool and do it yourself than pay someone else. Aside from a few specialized tools, like expensive facing kits, there’s very little I can’t handle on my own at this point. It partly comes from being tight a tight Yorkshireman, but also from the frustration of paying “professionals” for shoddy work.
I reckon it's considerably faster to fix most things at home than it is to make the return trip to a bike shop twice.
Plus you can fix them out-of-hours, i.e. it doesn't cut into riding time.
To follow up on my OP...
Obviously I've had a (tiny) puncture which the sealant has "fixed". Do I now need to plug this small hole with a bacon strip/worm?
(I'm REALLY reluctant to take the tyre off the rim and patch from the inside as I'll never get the bloody tyre back on the rim! LBS installed the tyre and even their experienced mechanic struggled. NB Giant SLR carbon rims are shit. Mine must be slightly over-sized as EVERY.SINGLE.TYRE that has been mounted to those rims has been impossibly tight - theres no way to re-install at the roadside 🤬)
If the sealant has sealed it and it's holding pressure, there's no point in attempting to plug it any further, imo.
there's no point in attempting to plug it any further, imo.
Agree. The strips and crap are for when the sealant doesnt work. Weird slices which get semi sealed aside for which a patch seems best. Unless it loses air overnight/midride I would leave it alone.
On a related note I had a mixed afternoon post ride when I decided to do some work I have been putting off.
Full sus: all happy refreshing sealant, general clean especially of the chain and relube of chain.
hard tail: change to tubeless. complete pain in the arse. One wheel all happy but the other saying sod it and emptying all air. Will go back to it tomorrow.
road bike: admittedly I was running low on chain cleaner (especially after the full sus) but my god I am not sure how it ended up like that. Ordered some new cleaner and will try again.
Nope, love it. I'm just as likely to buy new bike tools as I am bike parts.
How many home mechanics have bottom bracket chasing tools, full set of bearing extractors and presses, blind bearing pullers, shock bush burnishing tools, fork bushing burnishing tools, 3 different chain wear tools, disc mount facing tool, 3 work stands to name a few.
I might have a bit of a problem.
Oh I have way more than that so you’re in a safe space here, but I've been working in bike shops and at home on bikes since the 70's.
Plus all the cars I’ve restored/raced and their associated kit along with engineering being my trade you tend to build up an obscene amount of kit to "just get it done right"
My late wife was incredibly tolerant of my “hobbies” to the point where I built a workshop a meter longer than our house.
At the end of the day if it makes you happy and your not causing any hardship for your household just go for it.