> On Dec 4, 2014, at 11:25 PM, lungimsam <john11.2...@gmail.com> wrote: > > I can do some stuff on my bikes. Setting up cockpits and saddle/seatpost, > brake lever/caliper/housing/cable installation and adjustment, pedals, > shifter lever installation and adjustment, fender/rack installations, > cassette/chain swapping, etc. The more basic stuff. > > But I haven't dared to do anything with bb's, cranksets, wheel > building/truing, headset adjustment, derailer installation. Just don't wanna > mess anything up. > But I want to learn to do this stuff so I don't have to depend on the LBS for > things.
Dare. It’s a bike and thankfully the technology is not mysterious- you can usually figure it out just by looking at it. The mot complicated thing on your list is wheel building. Leave that be until you have some of the other things under your belt. > What's a good way to go about doing these more difficult things without > damaging anything? Books and websites are helpful, but I still don't have the > confidence to mess with the aforementioned stuff. > > Buy a beater and wrench away on it? But a lot of old road bike beaters don't > match the type of components and frame of the RBW bikes and wheels, so I > don't know how helpful that would be to break down and rebuild a Peugeot (for > instance) to help me learn how to do maintenance on my Rivbikes. > > Any ideas? How'd you learn? I learned from garbage picking old bikes, tearing them apart, putting them back together (often in mix ’n’ match style). And then I learned from Glenn’s Complete Bicycle Manual. And then I got a job in a bike shop. If you live in a metropolitan area, there may very well be some classes you can take on bike maintenance. Our own Jim Thill has sponsored some of those classes at his shop- this is a great way to learn this stuff because someone who knows it is right there. Kind of a funny thing. I used to overhaul my bikes every winter- true the wheels, repack the various bearings, put on a new chain, clean everything up nice and spiffy, regrease every thread, etc.- a pretty much complete teardown. Now most of my bikes have sealed bearings in the hubs, BBs and headsets. I rebuild the headset in my Riv (a Stronglight that came with the frame in 1996) about every 5 years and even then, when I have it apart, it doesn’t need it. Some bike stuff is just way better than it used to be, like bearings. The Riv has Phil hubs, still rolling silky smooth on the original bearings. It’s got a Campy Veloce sealed BB, still smooth after a decade of service. I spend about two hours a year on bike maintenance for three bikes and most of that is wiping off crud. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
