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    Fix Your Bike
    Fix Your Bike
    Fix Your Bike
    Ebook152 pages56 minutes

    Fix Your Bike

    By Jackie Strachan and Jane Moseley

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Everyone's cycling nowdays. City streets are thronged with cyclists on the latest cool bikes, and more and more of us are cycling for fun at the weekends. You may love to cruise the streets and lanes with the wind in your hair, but would you be able to fix your bike if it let you down?

    Fix Your Bike is a brilliantly straightforward, stylish and no-fuss approach to getting you geared up and back on your bike in no time. It's a visually stunning, clear-cut and hands-on guide to DIY bike maintenance and safety that does exactly what it says on the tin. By teaching you the basics in plain terms and straightforward, step-by-step instructions you can simply just get on with riding your bike without encouraging any further bumps in the road. Speedy, easy and proficient, Fix Your Bike is full of shortcuts, tricks and techniques that all cyclists should know to help them get back (and remain) on the road.

    Smart and beautifully illustrated, this book will aid and encourage you in all areas of bike maintenance – from puncture repair to gear care, brake-tightening to chain-fixing – this brilliant roadside companion will help you bring out the best in your bike.

    Word count: 15,000

    Other forthcoming titles in this series: Fix Your Home and Fix Your Garden.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins UK
    Release dateSep 17, 2015
    ISBN9781911042020
    Fix Your Bike

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      Book preview

      Fix Your Bike - Jackie Strachan

      CHAPTER ONE

      GET IN GEAR

      ALL YOU NEED TO BEGIN YOUR JOURNEY ON TWO WHEELS

      illustration

      KNOW YOUR BIKE

      Before you start looking into the different kinds of bike available, here’s a brief guide to the major components. You’ll notice that for every pro there seems to be a con, and vice versa, but hopefully this review will help you to home in on the issues that are key for you. (For buying a bike the right size, see here.)

      BIKE BASICS

      illustration

      THE RIGHT BIKE FOR YOU

      1Where will you keep it? If you need to climb stairs to store it – on a landing for example – weight immediately becomes an issue. And space? If it’s at a premium, then a folding bike may be the answer.

      2If you are commuting, what is your route like? Hilly? Will you have to carry your bike up or down any steps? You’ll need a reasonable range of gears and again won’t want a bike that’s too heavy.

      3You may have some Lycra lurking at the back of the wardrobe, but the chances are that you will be cycling in ‘normal’ clothes a lot of the time. If that means sometimes in a dress or skirt, a step-through frame might be worth thinking about.

      4How much stuff will you need to carry? A backpack is useful, but can make your back hot and sweaty and drag on the shoulders. So how about panniers or maybe a basket?

      5And finally, how much do you want to spend? Bikes are available at all prices and second-hand (from a reputable source) is also an option. Will you have to leave your bike chained up unattended for hours at a time? If you are worried about returning to find just the front wheel, all forlorn but still securely locked to its post, maybe now’s not the time to splash the cash.

      Do you get what you pay for? On the whole, yes, although you may pay extra for something fashionable in cool colours. It’s probably advisable to steer clear of the absolute budget end of the market and get a robust bike that will last. Ask people about their bikes, check out your local bike shop and when you’re ready to buy, perhaps take a cyclist friend along with you.

      FRAME

      The basic diamond-pattern frame shape has been around for over 100 years, although there have been plenty of other variations since then. The top tube was traditionally horizontal with the road on men’s bikes, and dropped for women, so they wouldn’t have to do anything as unladylike as swing a leg over to mount the bike – rather difficult clad in an ankle-length skirt. These days, the degree of slope of the top tube is often more a function of the design rather than a hint about which gender should ride it. Bikes are made specifically to suit women’s physical proportions as well as men’s and with step-through frames, but there is no reason why a woman should not buy man’s bike if it fits her and suits the kind of cycling she wants to do. And a man with a bad back might find that a step-through frame is just what the doctor ordered.

      The weight of the frame affects the weight of the bike quite considerably and depends on what it is made of.

      Aluminium alloy is light and won’t rust, but is less durable than steel; you will also feel bumps and lumps more when you ride over them than with steel. It is the cheapest of the lighter materials and is now commonly used for frames.

      Steel is strong, but can rust and can be heavy on bikes at the cheaper end of the market. Nearly all frames used to be made of steel, but far fewer are these days.

      Carbon fibre is light and strong but expensive, and can crack if knocked hard or when involved in a crash.

      Titanium is light, strong and won’t rust, but is very expensive, so is used for high-end bikes only.

      Good to know

      The brand name on the frame is usually that of the company that assembles the bike, having bought in the components from other companies.

      Hub gear (rear axle)

      illustration

      GEARS

      Gears are a great invention. They make starting off and tackling hills so much easier, but needing to take off your shoes and socks in order to count them all doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve got a better bike. Three or five gears may be enough if your habitual route doesn’t take you up Mont Blanc. And with a large number of derailleur gears, some may overlap (i.e. be duplicated). Together with the chain and cranks (the arms attached to the pedals), the gears form the transmission system. There are two main types.

      Hub

      Here the mechanism (or ‘mech’) is encased in the back wheel hub and is operated by a cable, which is tightened or loosened by the gear shift. The gears are therefore protected from the elements and are reliable, requiring little maintenance, and as a bonus the chain is unlikely to come off mid-ride. You can change gear while stationary, an advantage at a stop sign, for example, if you are in too high a gear for starting off again, and you can change gear while freewheeling (coasting). However, they are heavier and offer fewer gears than derailleurs – usually between three and eight (some premium brands offer more), although for cycling around town that should be enough – and if something does go wrong, hub gears are more difficult to fix.

      illustration

      Rear derailleur

      illustration

      Derailleurs

      These consist of a complicated-looking series of sprockets (cogs) attached at the back wheel and chain rings (toothed rings) at the cranks. There are generally two derailleurs (also known as ‘mechs’), one mounted at the cranks

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