Bike Improvements/Restoration - What Order?
Bike Improvements/Restoration - What Order?
I recently bought a junk bike. I want to slowly fix it up myself for two reasons: 1. To have a nicer bike. 2. To learn about bike maintenance. I'd like to improve it slowly (weeks or months) while keeping it functional. What order should I consider improvements?
I'll elaborate. When I first bought the bike, I tuned the brakes (linear pull). I struggled. I realized brake tuning was difficult because my wheel wasn't aligned. In retrospect, I should have straightened/replaced the wheel before tuning the brakes. I'm wondering if there are any insights you could provide about the order I should tackle this project (e.g., wheel alightment before brakes).
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The absolute best thing I ever did in regards to figuring out bike maintenance was to buy a really crappy bike and just try to fix it, similar to what you’ve done. I went into it with the attitude of “if I break stuff, that’s fine, it was super cheap and old anyways” and wasn’t imagining I’d actually get a sound bike out of it. I used park tool YouTube videos mostly, and from that bike (and a few others) I learned how to do pretty much everything maintenance-related short of redoing the seals in a mountain bike fork (and that’s likely coming up soon). Wheel truing is tough but absolutely doable - again, but a really cheap bike (marketplace special), take the wheels off and apart, and just try to get them back together - that’ll force you to true them. Park tool again was an awesome resource for that.
You've hit the nail on the head. This describes my mindset. Thanks for the encouragement.
For sure! I’m not always the best at responding immediately, but if you’ve got any other questions, feel free to chat me.