Bike maintenance

A bike is an amazingly simple machine. Yet it’s also amazingly easy to put it together wrong - as the folks at ASDA can testify . There was a lot of general sniggering in the press about this at the time, but even apparently ‘professional’ mechanics can make mistakes in putting bikes together. I’m NOT...
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Yeth, Mathtur! Fresh body parts, sourced by my assistant, Igor, from Recyke Y’Bike, in Byker. No Genius should ever be without an assistant like Igor to help procure stuff like this. The only question is, should I re-spray it, or leave it in its original colours? What do you think, Igor?
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Siegfried’s fitted with a 5-speed Sturmey Archer hub, and a thumb trigger shifter like this: I’ve been riding Siegfried for about a month, and have always found that the gears are prone to step up - if you select first gear, it doesn’t take much of a nudge on the shifter for it to jump...
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Today looked like spring, so what better weather for riding could there be? Not too hot, not too cold, but just right. So I visited two clients on Siegfried, and on the trip to the second one (just after lunch time) it was warm enough to put my nice red woolen jumper in my...
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I’ve been having a bit of bother with the back wheel on our tandem, Daisy. Basically, the bearing’s either loose, so that there’s some definite wobble in the wheel, and corresponding slack handling of the bike, or tight, so that the wheel doesn’t run free. Neither are good. So this morning before setting off to...
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Wow! Check out Yanek’s latest effort - a fantastic resuscitation job on a bike from the ’60s. From this: To this: Fantastic! There are more photos on Yanek’s Bicyclog pages. See - to get a new bike, you don’t need a shed load of money, just a keen eye for a classic, and a whole lot...
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The weather here today has been . . . unremittingly foul. So much for the forecast that said we’d have showers in the morning, but a clear afternoon. Not here, it wasn’t. Strong, cold wind from the South, continual rain, and the tang of sea spray in the air. Lovely. Still, that’s no excuse for...
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I really like to ride my bike. I’ve always liked to ride. But it’s only over the last couple of years that I’ve been using it as my main mode of transport locally. The numbers speak for themselves: From when I was eleven, I did something like 500 miles between 1981 and 1985 on my...
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You know how bad luck happens in threes? Well I’m waiting for the third. A couple of weeks ago, I was congratulating myself on having gone at least a year without a puncture. The Gods were obviously listening, ‘cos soon after that I got a superb flat in my Sturdy Commuting Bike, Wilf’s, rear tyre....
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