Hi all

I’ve been servicing our cars for years as I don’t see the point in paying inflated labour and part costs for jobs that can be done in a couple of hours on the drive.

However, I have never tried to service any of our bikes (mainly through lack of experience and a fear of ballsing something up) and think it’s about time I learnt, rather than paying out for Halfords or Evans to do it.

Are there any recommended sites/books/other resources for learning what to do and what tools are required for each job?

Cheers

Where are you based? I am sure someone will show and shadow you

Hi ecksee

It’s worth getting in touch with your local council as some offer free, or heavily subsidised bike maintenance courses. They tend to be quite basic, but are a good place to start and often lead on to more advanced courses.

Good luck

Parktool website has all you need to know. You can buy their ‘blue book’ with it all in too if you don’t want to get greasy fingers on your laptop.

Park Big Blue Book is a good starting point. Also the Park website has how to videos.

As Weeksy says, someone local to show you how?

EDIT: WassWaswaswaswaswas beat me to it. 😉

rather than paying out for Halfords or Evans to do it.

Even if you want to get a shop to do it, I’d rather pay anyone other than Halfords or Evans to do it 😉

But DIY is far better and not all that hard. Just takes time getting to learn the components, different standards/brands, and having the right tools.

Park Tools site is good (you don’t need their expensive tools). Sheldon Brown has a lot of info though it’s very in depth.

YouTube etc videos also. Plus check manufacturer sites for instructions, get the manuals and some will have videos also.

Don’t try to learn everything all in one go or buy all the tools, just learn what you need for the job and build up tools as you go. Generally you won’t need to do all that much. Changing brake pads, indexing gears, replacing gear cable, basic adjustments. Covers most common things, then move on to bottom bracket and headset, cranks & pedals, fitting new stuff like new brakes which might need cable shortening and alignment, then replacing/servicing wheel bearings, shock bushings, air can shock service (is surprisingly easy), forks are relatively easy too.

Last one to touch I’d say is wheel building. Leave that to bearded gurus 😉

Oh and while torque wrenches are handy and maybe advisable if not confident with the torques required, don’t rely on them. They can become inaccurate plus you can end up over torquing when using thread lock or any grease on threads. In which case you then invest in some bolt extractors after you’ve snapped the bolt (as I’ve just had to do) 😉

sheldonbrown is the bible but a little out of date for somethings regarding hydraulic breaks.

torques required, don’t rely on them. They can become inaccurate plus

Too true. Always back off your torque wrench after use for best life.

Push bikes are far easier to work on than cars, you’ll be fine.

Loads if Web resources, Sheldon brown, park website. Fork manufacturers have download able tech guides for servicing etc…

I don’t trust anyone else to work on my bikes, never mind the expense!

What do you want to service.? Fresh cables and outers will refresh the shifting/ braking. BB’s are pretty much always sealed units so if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Cup and cone hubs are always worth stripping and cleaning if they haven’t been touched in a while. If the brakes are hydraulic then a bleed once a year won’t hurt them. A basic fork/ shock seal service is easy enough but anything more in depth may require experienced hands.

I do a full strip and clean around this time of year on my fast roadie while it’s off the road and the winter bike gets the same treatment towards the end of the summer. My mountain bike gets the treatment when it needs it.

Messing about with the bike is something that is hyped up by those who wish to sell you a pointless course IMHO.
I’ll admit to looking on thee web when investigating a shock rebuild but anything else is literally child’s play. Take it apart with a tool that fits and reverse the operation to assemble it. It really is that easy.
Expensive (blue) tools are nice but unless you are dong it daily not needed. Maybe avoid pound shop stuff, try the local tool merchants.

Thanks everyone, as I expected lots of help and confirmation that this isn’t going to be rocket science.

Where are you based? I am sure someone will show and shadow you

I’m just outside Woking, Surrey.

What do you want to service.?

Mainly routine stuff – gears, brakes and checking that everything is greased and working correctly.

The brakes on my sons bike (cable disc brakes) are flakey at best so I’d like to get these sorted as a priority to get him back out and about.

I’ll check out the Park website and book for a starter. My approach with the car is to buy tools as and when needed but to buy the best quality I can afford to save re-buying later on but will try and avoid the temptation to go mad!!

Start with a good book such as this

Make sure you set aside enough time.

Make sure you have the right tool.

The web has some great stuff; this is a good intro and if you’re competent enough to service a car you’ll be fine.

The park book is good, there are a lot of online video guides for most things.
Watch them through before you start – sounds obvious doesn’t it…
Never undertake important or time critical maintenance while a bike shop is closed (ie if you are riding at 9am don’t start at 6pm the night before unless you have a spare bike)
Respect your limits and knowledge, sometimes it’s better to give up scoop all the parts into a box and head back the a good LBS before you bugger something expensive.
Test everything especially brakes after you have fixed them before heading out 🙂

As many have said bikes are not that complicated but there are things that you only do a handful of times that require expensive tools or are just time consuming for the home mechanic so it helps to have a LBS to fall back on for that sort of stuff.

Push bikes are far easier to work on than cars, you’ll be fine.

Well. Hmm. Yeah. But.

Cars are more complicated objects, sure. But most car servicing is following a checklist, then plugging in a diagnostic computer and replacing the parts the computer says are faulty. Whereas bike maintenance is quite often about problem solving, understanding what’s working or what isn’t and why, and working out a solution.

Our local garage is great, happy to let them service our car. But I’ve saved probably several thousand pounds over the years by not replacing parts they say need to be replaced – cleaning a sensor instead of replacing it, replacing a wheel stud instead of replacing the entire hub assembly, stuff like that.

Buy a stand of some sort and life will be made so much easier.

I started with the Zinn book, although I don’t know if that’s still about or how up to date it is, and now there’s so much on the internet – including asking on here when something doesn’t quite make sense – I probably wouldn’t bother with a book.

Cars are more complicated objects, sure. But most car servicing is following a checklist, then plugging in a diagnostic computer and replacing the parts the computer says are faulty. Whereas bike maintenance is quite often about problem solving, understanding what’s working or what isn’t and why, and working out a solution.

That sounds a lot like fixing a car, except that understanding what’s gone wrong on a car and why can be far more complicated in the event that the computer doesn’t give you an easy answer. Diagnosing problems on a bike is a doddle by comparison.

To the OP: when you say the brakes are flakey, what exactly is up with them?

The levers don’t always return fully and there’s very little bite when applied. The pads are fairly new and have lots left on them and I’ve tried adjusting the calliper/cable with no result so I’m wondering if the cables are stretched or snagging in the plastic cover somewhere.

Could be many things…
Cable run, kinks, tight bends etc.
Knackered cable outers (outer is pulled through in the ferrul)
Caliper not releasing back
Lever not releasing

Generally you want to do a step by step to eliminate each thing

If the levers aren’t returning fully then I’d disconnect the cable at the caliper and check for a corroded cable/corroded outer, a new cable (stainless) and quality outer housing is cheap, I’d also check the sprung actuation arm on the caliper by operating it where the cable attaches to – it should spring back to the fully off position, depending on the quality of the caliper it may have poor sealing so you may have to partially dismantle it to lubricate the internal mechanism. Shouldn’t be a problem if you are confident with tools.

The bite issue may be down to a contaminated disc, or more likely a poorly adjusted caliper thus making the actuating pad hit one side of the disc before forcing the disc over to make contact with the other fixed pad.

What make of caliper is it?, unfortunately the vast majority of cable operated disc brakes fitted to low end kids bikes are often poorer in operation than a well set up v brake, I’ve set up and built loads of kids bikes for folk in my local town so I speak from frustrated experience.

This hayes brake pad alignment tool is very handy for aligning to caliper to the disc, you could do the same thing with a couple of feeler gauges.

Ben Cooper “Cars are more complicated objects, sure…..”
That sounds a lot like fixing a car, except that understanding what’s gone wrong on a car and why can be far more complicated in the event that the computer doesn’t give you an easy answer. Diagnosing problems on a bike is a doddle by comparison.

I think the thing is with cars it is not worth the garges time to have someone spend hours fault finding as it can be so complicated it can take too long.

a lot of videos on how to do most maintenance and service jobs can be found on YouTube