[Closed] the worst bike maintenance jobs

o,bleeding avid brakes and removing old pedals....

Scraping doggie poop from tyres, downtube and fork bridge after most rides this summer.

Never had it so bad - maybe lack of rain to wash dissolve them is to blame ............

Filthy.

Simon, when the cleats are worn, chuck the shoes and get some new ones. Problem solved. 😉

Fixing knackerd postie's bikes every morning, bores the hell out of me

agree with the doggie poop, scrapping it off the wheels with baby wipes and an old toothbrush before taking it to the bike shop on Monday was not a good start to the week.

Replacing and setting up the front mech. Im pretty good at it, but its STILL a PITA.

Pre sale setup of BSO's during Christmas week.

bso?

Bike Shaped Object

Bicycle shaped object. The cheap things sold in box shifting sports stores and supermarkets that from a distance look like a bike.

Setting up the new cleats, for some reason always takes me weeks to get it right. That and anything to do with chainring bolts hate them with a passion, whats wrong with glue?

Daft bloody things 🙂 what use are they anyway.

Dog poo, winter sludge in the cassette, front mechs are boring, avids pita but few years with shimano sorted that one. Getting cleats right in new shoes.

Cleaning. Especially weeks worth of road grime, that horrible black filth that gets everywhere.
Working on clean bikes is fine, there's not much that I think "oh no I have to fix..." but actually getting round to properly cleaning the commuter bike... Ugh.

Servicing forks is pretty bad...so much potentially for messing up (scratching surfaces, dirt in internals, losing little clips/screws/etc) combined with the fact that no matter how careful, oil will get spilt.

...I maybe just be saying this though as I've spent this afternoon servicing my Revs including 'forgetting' that I'd removed the MOCO unit before turning the forks upside down dumping 100ml+ of fork oil on the dining room floor. 😳

New cleats; just draw round the old ones...

arghh, this should be #1-Anything with Torx bolts

Cleaning dissected slug out of a cassette between teeth. *gags*

Bleeding brakes. Hateful job.

I suggest single malt and online shopping for new bike shoes

.removing old cleats....any jobs on the bike worse than that ?

Smug response - sorry. Have you ever heard of Copaslip / Copper grease? When you get em out - grease em before you reinstall. A bit late now I know.

My worse job is the winter daily / weekly cleaning of oily grit from the chain / drivetrain. Does my head in.

You are sooooo wrong!

I love working/fettling/building bikes it's all good. it's so much fun I even do other peoples for beer and cakes. ( the tricksier the problem, the happier I am)

chainring bolts def. always end up with big gashes in my fingers.

I dont think bike fettling is a chore but standing in a pool of semi frozen gloop for 24 hours at the Puffer takes the edge off things...

And crispy dog egg debris removal, very gag worthy... especially in the workings of front mechs

I hate doing cup and cone bearings. I hate them so much I refuse to buy hubs that use them. Much rather press in new cartridges than faff about with locknuts and cones and 👿

Mainly because I suck at doing them mind.

I suggest single malt and online shopping for new bike shoes

what a nice idea ! tonight I've opted for Red wine, Pringles, Beverly Hills cope while convincing myself I really need those £250 Rebas from onone.

Will take the Dremel to the cleats tomorrow.

Alu seatpost stuck in steel frame.

Frayed cable ends... any job is made worse when a strand of cable goes up between one's finger and nail.

also, pulling crappy Presta compressor adapter off valve and scraping knuckles on discs every time.

...I hate doing cup and cone bearings...

possibly my favourite bike job!

i hate headsets though...

Front mechs, Formula brake bleeding, dog poo and removing pedals.

Swapping chainrings.... never fail to bark my knuckles removing the old ones. Oh and trying to get the more gnarly type tyres off the rims.

Taking apart and packing up the bike ready to be flown home - doing this now 🙁

If you use ****brothers meatbeater pedals with their 'made of cheese' cleats, the cleat bolts will never get stuck in your shoes as you'll be changing the cleats for new ones every 2 months or so.

👿

All of it. When I'm as rich as Darcy I'll have a man do all of mine

Taking apart and packing up the bike ready to be flown home - doing this now

Didn't find a job then? Wounder, sorry to hear that

don't think any bike maintenance job is bad, compared to cars they are an absolute delight to work on.

The new shimano 15mm bolt through front hubs.Not hard but a pain in the hoop compared to uncaged bearings when all you want to do is give it a quick clean out and regrease.. its just more time consuming.

Didn't find a job then? Wounder, sorry to hear that

'fraid not, but to be honest with the bike park now closed Whistler is kind of boring especially when it's raining all the time now it's autumn. The non-bike park trails are ok but not really my kind of riding (not on a DH bike anyway) apart from a couple of north shore type trails which are really fun. Would've been nice to go back to Vancouver for a while but I've ran out of money haha

Speaking as a cycle mechanic, the worst job is working on a bike that is so badly engineered that all the skills in the world won't get it to a satisfactory condition. As mentioned above then - working on bike shaped objects.

As an after thought, working on bikes that'll never be used, or bikes owned by a-holes is pretty demoralizing also. Conversely working on bike belonging to customers who buy me doughnuts etc, is one of lifes pleasures.

Personally and maybe irrationally - I hate bolting the back wheels into singlespeeds/fixies/bmx's and the axle shifts in the dropouts as you torque the bolts. That rips my knitting. All bikes should have tugs, or what I call Ritchey style dropouts and eccentric BB's. It's the law round here (in my microcosm).

Trying to centre and get effective, my Dia Compe 890's on my vintage BMX's.

definitely having to clean dog poo from your bike. 🙁

I hate bolting the back wheels into singlespeeds/fixies/bmx's and the axle shifts in the dropouts as you torque the bolts.

Yeah I hated that when I bmxed, got around it by either using tensioners or stuffing a towel down either side of the wheel (between tyre and chainstay) so it couldn't move.

This thread has made my day, honestly....it's like therapy.

But soft, what light through yonder window breaks, tis my formula bleeding method! Anyone suffering this need not, it's all about constructing a jig (2 b 1 wood is what u need)...walk in the park. I changed the front hose (cos I cut the original too short) and it's bang on...I have to back off the bite point! I've found that you don't need to spend days removing all the bubbles, I do this about 3 to 4 times. It's all about the final reservoir fill.

I'm using little finger for braking atm...happy days.

Down side, I thing the stopping power is fudging my forks 😯

+1 Cones, I like doing it but can't help feeling that things have moved on!
+1 for the front mech.
Not suffered the dogy doo prob on mine, but the lads bikes during the learning at the park phase 👿

for cleat removal - put some penetrating oil on the bolts the night before and let it soak in.

Worst job - setting up indexing. Its why my most used bike is singlespeed.