Old barn find I breathed new life in because gravel bikes are too expensive so fuck it I'll make my own.
Just waiting for the last parts since i lost some plastic thingamabobs I need for the STIs.
Sometimes I think I should keep my bike shop like surgically clean so I don't lose the small, crucially important plastic bits in the mess of parts and old boxes but alas, if your personal shop doesn't look like you could outfit a frame with parts you find on the ground, is it even a shop?
It never occured to me that we can talk about bikes here without bougie assholes being like "If you don't spend $10,000, that's not a bike"
One time I asked a bike forum for suggestions for some inexpensive disc brakes for my Shimano frame. Nothing but dunks. Its all I could afford at the time, and that's still true. It's a decent 29er for what I paid, and it has spots to attach after market stuff. I even found a free $150 salsa rim sitting by a garbage can in a rich neighborhood, so I put it on. I'm not above a frankenbike, and nobody should talk down to anyone just because they can't afford a $1,000 Specialized.
A part of me wishes I had enough space to mess around with bikes. But alas, I don't. I do have a folding bike that I bought new around the summer of 2020.
I used to just wrench on gym mats in my old flat, 1-2 bicycles never really took up too much storage for me to worry about and it protected the floor, easy to lay out but also easy to stow away, maybe that's something for you if you wanna tinker with your bike? A folding bike is still a bike in the end and much of tinkering with bikes doesn't require you to turn your living room into a workshop, imo
Just got an electric bike recently, been really enjoying it so far, although I managed to bend the back rim a bit somehow :/ planning to take it to a bike shop to have the wheel trued sometime this week, and maybe get fenders installed too.
If you have old tyres or tubes keep them around to extend your fenders with flaps because there is a global conspiracy going on to make bike fenders not long enough. Just strap some on there with some zip ties, doesn't look great, does the job great
I've been thinking about doing one of those e-bike conversion kit thingies on an old classic dutch-style bike that's been sitting for a while. Got that common three gear internal shifting thingy going on, so I'm wondering whether that's possible (it probably is, right?) and whether it's a good idea (it probably isn't, right?)
Possible? Yes, just gotta be a front hub motor probably.
Good idea? Sure, why not.
I genuinely like E-Bikes a lot, they're very, very good vehicles.
i thought i was an anti e-bike purist but they're still better'n cars
I've had the luck of borrowing an old pedelec from a friend for a few rides recently, it's honestly just great fun to get around on, real zippy out of the hole and a lot less exhausting overall (there be hills)
I'm worrying a front hub might be a bit questionable on the structural integrity side of things, that fork is real thin-looking and probably not made for being pulled on? On the other hand, I might just risk it and see how it shakes out...
I'm not gonna post a picture of my frankenbike for doxxing reasons but I found a bunch of discarded bikes at the dump (friend works there and let me take them) and I cobbled together a hideous looking but reliable bike.
It's got a road frame, mountain fork, hybrid tires, riser bars, none of the derailleurs were any good so I just shortened the chain to make it effectively single speed, v brake in the back and disc brake in the front, mirrors and lights for added safety, and a cargo rack.
Basically every part of it is from a different bike so it's a technicolor monstrosity also.
But it's mine!
I've been looking for a vintage BMX bike to fix up with my nephew. Like a real wreck we can bring back to life. Tried yard sales and swap meets but no luck so far. Any advice on where I can find one?
Craigslist or your local equivalent. Allthough from my experience "specialty" bikes like this are very much dependent on the local market, if you don't have a BMX Scene, there's not gonna be any used ones about basically.
idk what your requirements are but newer bmx bikes are so so much better and might even cost about the same because they're not "collectible"
I'm in the market for a bike. Not for commuting just for riding around town. My area is mostly flat except for a few overpasses. What do you recommend?
Hybrid / Trekking Bike is your jack of all trades here I think.
For an honest commuter internal gearing is good, if you ever want to branch out into touring cassette beats it. it's really up for preference. Suspension forks may add some comfort, but add weight a lot, especially at a getting around bike. Not so much problem if it's flat, honestly, and probably easier to acquire.
But honestly, depending on your distance, literally anything that fits you and isn't broken will be fine
i got a new back rim toward the end of the season last year, and I never brought it back to the guy to 'true it' after some riding like he said.
went for my first ride of 2022 this past weekend and it seemed fine :shrug-outta-hecks:
It's probably okay. Spokes settled after a couple rides and tensions may differ slightly. Good builds don't move much. True isnt so much important as balanced. Even spoke tension is a strong wheel. Pluck your spokes originating from the same side hub flange and they should have a similar tone. Like a guitar string.
your spokes originating from the same side hub flange
wat
So your spokes are connected to the rim, which connect to the hub. Every spoke on the rim goes to every other side of the hub, traditionally called drive and non-drive (the side with gears and side without gears). So the first spoke after the valve might go to the drive, the next spoke goes to the non-drive, next spoke to the drive, so on and so forth. The spokes that come out of the same side of the hub should have the same tone as one another. So all the spokes on the drive side of the hub should sound the same, and all the spokes coming out of the non-drive side should sound the same.
I need to (
not want toand want to) convert a bike of mine to a city bike, but i have stupid requirements for aesthetic reasons.Why doesnt anyone make a bike with modern dropouts for a road bike, but a 1" threaded steerer?
someone posted a bike check on a lot of japanese bikes at a shop and they all looked really nice, also the narrowness of vintage styled frames look really nice, and i dont like the overbuilt look of modern bikes.
Basically, i want a bike like the whole Mountain Bikeification of road bikes didn't happen at all, and i'll just strip parts off this one cheap bike i have
It sounds to me like what you want is a 90s roadbike frame to modernize to STIs?
Yeah, but i wonder if someone makes a frame new, with the more modern dropout instead of those long ones
You mean with a possbility to hang a derailleur? I'm sorry but I honestly don't understand what you mean by more modern dropouts instead of the long ones vis-a-vis roadbikes, the distnace between the dropouts has been 130mm in the rear since a while now
i think they mean they like old steel frame road bikes that usually have these kind of horizontal dropouts but they want the more modern ones like these vertical dropouts
i dont know the technical, modern, nor correct terms for these things, I just know they call them dropouts, on a track bike, they're called fork ends, and vintage bikes have dropouts that let you adjust the wheel back and forth, but modern ones are set where they are and the derailleur hangs on the frame, but i dont remember if that's always been the case
Gotcha and...sort of I guess. Most world-traveling bikes still offer both, but at a premium, premium price.
Otherwise I think ya gotta look for old frames. Or jury rig some stuff together, I can't remember where I saw it but I once saw someone working with emergency rear derailleur hangers on a long dropout frame to some effect
some 90s road and touring bikes have vertical dropouts and threaded steerers. Soma grand randonneur is a newer option along with some high end stuff.
You're probably thinking of the vid I posted, and if so, some of those bikes were built on Surly frames which you should probably be able to find on the used market.
Find a new fork and headset. Threaded headsets are so difficult to work with.
Ya that's totally fair. I see what you mean after browsing. I hate my stupid giant overdrive 2.0
I'm about to slap together a 1500 watt ebike kit, wish me luck y'all, hope the lack of bicycle infrastructure in my area doesn't lead to my untimely demise
i did the most bike maintenance in years today. i got a microfiber cloth and wiped winter's grit off my frame. i should probably clean the chain.
trued my wheels for the first time, wasn't really that hard. i'm sure they're still out by more than is strictly recommended, but i'm not gonna spend the money on a proper truing stand when the brake pads are right there so :shrug-outta-hecks:
a thread about bikes and bike maintenance as well as a thread about motorbikes and motorbike maintenance
I'm 7bicycles I ain't rebuilding a motorbike, this is a bicycle thread exclusively
I've had my Tern Clutch for about a year now, still love it. I thought about adding stuff to it like mudguards and a luggage carrier but I kinda like it naked
