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A friend asked if i could sort out his 'wobbly pedals' on what he optimistically calls a mountain bike - so i said i'd take a look.
He turns up with some catalogue bit of 'dual suspension' junk muttering something about it not being the sort of bike i ride and looking a bit embarrassed.
Anyway, the bottom bracket had gone so i started to strip out the old one so i could measure it and order a new one.
That's when i realised how much of a pleasure decent bikes are to work on - standardised fitments and tools etc. This thing had a BB style i'd never seen before so it was a root in the depths of an old tool box to see if i could bodge something together long enough to get it out.. I thought a regular BB tool was a pain!
Mind you, he did only pay £25 for it from a neighbour and he only rides it along the canal so not a bad buy really - even if the BB has now doubled the value of his bike 🙂
Quite. Try dealing with them in LBS duties...
"It'll cost how much to fix? But I only spent £50 on it!"
That's why i offered to do the job for him - i knew he'd have to spend far more than the bike was worth. Yes, i 'know' i did some poor bike shop out of work but i doubt it was a job they'd have been thrilled about anyway.
Whilst that would have been the case about 5 years ago, how may tools do you think are required nowadays even for BB repairs if you have a few bikes? Currently of the 5 bike in the shed, I have 2 square tapers, 1 Isis, 1 external and a press fit BB30.standardised fitments and tools etc.
You have a point about working on BSO's, (my daughters friends have brought them round here a few times in the past for repairs) but in all honesty I think modern bikes are probably worse from a standards point of view.
Good point, of the five bikes we have, two are square taper and three are regular HT II external jobs, never even had a look at a press fit BB and i hope i never have to 🙁
Yeah, me too, it's a bloody expensive tool. Is going to happen some day though, by which time I'll probably have a bike with a BB90 too!!
I hate even the idea of a press-fit system, Just like the motorcycle world they seem to want to take the home mechanic element out of the equation so we all have to spend lots of money in the bike shops. Plus, i really don't like the premise of a press-fit system.
I went through a phase where my lad's mates would turn up on catalogue and sports shop specials with one brake pad and no noodle, frayed and damaged gear cables, seized gripshifts, flat tyres, pringled wheels, loose saddles etc etc etc. I always felt I had to do something to make them vaguely roadworthy, not least because we live at 1400 feet, and getting home would simply mean a half mile 15-20% brakeless suicidal plunge for most of them, with survival rates calculated at less than 1:5.
That often meant a happy half hour learning new swearwords as I tried to make a gripshift change a gear, or setting up brake calipers made of cheese and plastic. Trying to get a wheel straight enough to actually engage a brake caliper. Hunting amongst the spiders under the workbench because I'd foolishly tried to open up a shifter assembly only to suffer a pingphukket as a minute leafspring made a bid for freedom. .....
Aye - i made the mistake of cleaning his drivetrain and attempting to set up his gears, i'd forgotten how rubbish cheap gripshift systems are.
Also did his brakes - yup, horrible plastic brake arms and levers 🙁
😆pingphukket