Anyone on here old enough to remember [url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacGyver ]macgyver[/url] he was the star of a tv series and could basically fix anything with duck tape and a penknife.
I thought we could perhaps learn from the various ingenious repairs people have had to make with very little resource.
For instance i carry around a $1 bill as i heard that if your tyre wall tears, you should put the note on top of it in between the tyre and the tube?
This old chestnut:
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Kevlar bead snapped 30miles from home with no hope of rescue. Found some scrap baler-twine and tied the tyre onto the rim. Worked a treat.
Don't have a photo but, we did replace a missing pivot with a multi-tool and some zip ties. Lasted about 3 hours.
we used the 'stuff grass in the tyre' technique after a puncture to get our mate off Deadwater Fell many years, took about an hour to get enough grass in and we got eaten alive by midges while we did it...but it DID work. (would have been quicker to walk but where is the fun in that when you're 19 and have nowt better to do?)
Mended a broken rear mech with my multi-tool, a stone, a dock-leaf and my teeth. Got me the 35 miles home.
Actually, the only thing I've ever not been able to fix/bodge and continue was a snapped frame...
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Keyring replaces lost pivot pin.
More Flinstones than Mac Gyver, mended a chain on a hire bike in the 80's, in the bottom of Langdale, with a big rock, held out over stake pass, through Borrowdale and back to the shop in Bowness. Strangley this didn't put me off mountain biking, it all seemed part of the challenge!
Replaced snapped pawl springs in Hope Pro 2 freehub using 4 delicately trimmed and shaped zipties. Ran for 2 weeks until spares obtained.
Repaired tyre with gel wrapper
My dad once splinted his broken steel cross frame with two sticks and some toeclips.. and finished the ride on it (i think it was Hell of the North Cotswolds)
In the past I've used some DPC as a tyre boot after a riding buddy got a 3" split a side wall. Turned my Heckler into a SS after ripping off rear mech. I now carry a spare hanger.
sheared a shock bolt so taped and zipped tied broken halves in shock did 15 mile on it now always carry a spare
US currency is made with silk, and it it tougher than any other form of paper. I have seen (small denomination) currency used to shore up a rip in a sidewall.
I was riding near Crested Butte in 1981 when a friend had the alan-key end bolt come out of his front hub. Not much material around to work with, a few stunted evergreens, but lying near the road was the broken end of a shovel handle, a tough piece of wood if there ever was one.
Using his Swiss Army knife, my friend whittled the end to the same size as the missing screw, and used the rest of the handle for leverage to thread it in. Then using the saw blade on his knife he cut it off cleanly, and we got back to town. Later he mounted the makeshift piece on a plaque for his wall.
we rode with some bloke who's bike was shockingly maintained. He had to kick the rear wheel a number of times before we started to engage the freewheel.
Needless to say it gave up again half way round and we zip tied the spokes to the cassette to effect a 'direct drive' from chain to cassette to wheel.
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not a trail fix, but I once replaced a pivot at the top of a v-brake arm with a bit of a spoke, and ran a chain device held on using a spacer made out of a plastic ball-point pen lid. lasted ages that did.
Many years ago near the bottom of Stanage causeway, Paul (now mechanic at Cotic) snapped his bars and ended up in the ditch. He neatly repaired them with a stick rammed into each end and then centered under the stem clamp. This was after he'd asked Sandy if she really needed her bars on the back of the tandem! Cheeky boy!
Rob
We once found some lad halfway round FTD at Cannock with his rear mech in his spokes, and the chain jammed between his cassette and spokes right down near the hub, seizing it up. We split the chain either side of the jam, rejoined it round a reasonable gear and gaffa-tape & zip-tied what was left of the mech to the chainstay to make a tensioner. It was still a bit ropey but it got him round the rest of the trail. Whether he'd have been better off walking than fixie-ing is a whole other question though...
i'm quite proud of this:
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became this:
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using only string, an innertube, and some electrical tape. it even rode ok...
(the really clever part was taking the crank off to loop each end of the innertube around the BB shell)
Chipps did a good one at the Bristol Bikefest in 2008 when the brake lever pivot fell out of his avid. He used the short section of an allen key to take the pivot's place and just zip tied the long section to the lever. Worked a treat by all accounts and I think he kept it that way for some time. (also think a pic of it was in the mag)
Half way round the High Street loop and my mates collided resulting in a pringled front wheel. I managed to get it back in shape with the little spoke ket on my Crankbrother multitool. When he took i back to the shop it only had 0.5mm run out.
Instead of carrying a dollar bill for tyre repair just wrap half a metre of duct tape round something you always carry (water bottle, tyre lever, etc). This way you can fix torn tyres but can also fix other things.
For me:
Tyre walls with duct tape.
Put the pin back into the plate of a magic link with patience and a rock. (now carry chain tool)
Straightened chain ring teeth with two rocks.
Zip-tied soem guy's brake lever back on the bars so he could attempt to get down... hope he made it! 🙂
I tried the stuffing grass in the tyre once - didnt work, so I tied a knot where the puncture was in the inner tube and stuffed it back in. Worked fine, you could feel the knot, but didnt loose air for the rest of the ride.
This ran absolutely fine for the last 10 miles round Kirroughtree.
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Bodged a geared bike into an SS after the r mech disappeared into the r wheel, zip tied a cassette to the wheel after a freehub went kaput, leaves and sweet wrapper in ripped tyre wall incidents, binder twine to replace lost r mech jockey wheel bolt, judicious use of stick to hold together a snapped seatpost so I didn't have to stand the 17 miles home on my SS 🙂
The classic wedging a stick behind the front mech to keep the chain on the middle ring after the outer gear cable exploded! Lasted 2 weeks before I got around to sorting it out!