Archived I want to build my bicycle, I want to build a bike (Bike Building thread)

Status
Not open for further replies.
Joined
Jun 25, 2011
Messages
468
Figured we needed a big and dandy one for the bike builders out there.

Anyone have any advice on getting the Mongoose Crush built? At my store we literally haven't constructed one in months because when we did make them we could never get the rear brakes to work correctly. It would either be too tight in the rear or the hand brake would be too loose. Any tips?

I think it might just be a problem with the side pull caliper brakes in general, because the Schwinn Falcon was giving me a lot of trouble last week.

Today as I was building, I had 45 min left on my shift. An ETL asked if I'd be able to make one more and then switch over to reshop. I look at my potential builds--the Huffy, a Crush and a Women's Great Divide.

I groan and choose the Great Divide. I tell him that if the bike flows together well, I should be able to get out and do about 20-25 minutes of reshop. Open up the box and immediately know I'm not doing reshop. I don't know how the bike got so mangled, I mean it's been sitting in a box. But the brake lines were all twisted amongst each other and looped into places that made absolutely no sense. Had to detach almost all of the lines just to get them out of the mess they were in.

Not only that, the pedal wouldn't even screw in correctly. I tried it for several minutes before grabbing a new one from the box and working that one in. After everything that could go wrong did go wrong, I had had enough. I took the half completed bike (brakes still need major tweeking) tossed it up on the repair wall and went to do 10 min of reshop to close out the shift.
 
Here's a tip --- quit over tightening every thing -- I'm tired of re-tapping every nut and fitting
toetap05.gif


Buy an EZ-out and tapping set from Sears -- and "LEARN" how to use it
rolleyes5.gif
 
I will ck with my bike builder on the crush & let you know. It is suggested to start ordering replacement parts on damage bikes. You will get them in about 2 weeks.
 
I will ck with my bike builder on the crush & let you know. It is suggested to start ordering replacement parts on damage bikes. You will get them in about 2 weeks.
If you're lucky! Unless they just hate my store, it used to take them 4-6 weeks before we'd get repair parts when I used to build bikes.
 
Anyone have any advice on getting the Mongoose Crush built? At my store we literally haven't constructed one in months because when we did make them we could never get the rear brakes to work correctly. It would either be too tight in the rear or the hand brake would be too loose. Any tips?

Stunt bikes are the hardest because their braking systems can be fussy (sidepull brakes or centerpull "U" brakes), the rear brake cable has multple segments including a split through a rotor on the handlebar stem, and there's not a lot of clearance inside of their small frames to get your big fat hands in there to move things around.

General pointers for adjusting brakes on the stunt bikes:

1. Tension the cable evenly all along the path from lever to calipers, including both sides of the "rotor" on the handlebar stem, adjusting the 4 or so tiny knurled adjustment knobs along the way so that there's no slack or excessive tightness along each segment. Make sure that the cable housings are properly seated in the levers.

2. Loosen the cable bolt on the calipers so that the caliper spring causes the calipers to fully extend out; adjust the brake shoes to line up on the rim by loosening the brake shoe bolts, aligning the shoe (pressing each caliper arm to the rim to check), then retightening the brake shoe bolts; push both caliper arms to the rim with the thumb and index finger of one hand, pull out the slack in the cable, and tighten up the cable bolt on the calipers with the other hand. A good way to do this with just two hands is to hold the calipers in one hand, hand-tighten the cable bolt with the other hand so that there is enough friction to hold the cable in place but not so tight that the cable can't slide back and forth, pull the cable end snug with the other hand, then tighten down the cable bolt with the wrench using that other hand. There will be a bit of slack that you were not able to fully tighten up that will allow the calipers to return to a position 1 or 2 mm above the rim. Use the knurled knob on the calipers to make final adjustments.

3. Sometimes you can center up the calipers by loosening up the rear bolt where it attaches to the frame, push the calipers over to the side opposite of the side to which it was unbalanced, then retighten the bolt. Sometimes the centering can be fine-tuned by moving this bolt back and forth just at the threshhold of tightness.

4. For really difficult centering issues with these brakes, tighten up the rear bolt, and if you can get access to a rubber mallet and punch (sometimes a screwdriver or small wrench and the rubberized end of the large crescent wrench will work in a pinch), gently tap on the top of the spring behind the calipers to balance the spring between both sides of the calipers.
 
Target doesn't sell bicycles, a better description would be "cr@pcycles."

Of course I may be somewhat biased. My wheels cost more probably two entire bicycles put together. I spent about $1000 18 months ago to have my bicycle frame repaired/upgraded, then stripped and repainted. That doesn't count probably another $1000 in componentry on it. Now THAT is a bicycle - and even then not a real expensive one as those things go.
 
Target doesn't sell bicycles, a better description would be "cr@pcycles."

Of course I may be somewhat biased. My wheels cost more probably two entire bicycles put together. I spent about $1000 18 months ago to have my bicycle frame repaired/upgraded, then stripped and repainted. That doesn't count probably another $1000 in componentry on it. Now THAT is a bicycle - and even then not a real expensive one as those things go.

Mine is a $35 piece of crap I bought off Craigslist. Been going strong for 2 years with it. I've had four bikes stolen while locked up, so I tend to just go with bad ones that if they get taken, I don't really care. Even with that said, getting a Target bike would still be a bit much, since I know it's gonna get stolen.
 
Mine is a $35 piece of crap I bought off Craigslist. Been going strong for 2 years with it. I've had four bikes stolen while locked up, so I tend to just go with bad ones that if they get taken, I don't really care. Even with that said, getting a Target bike would still be a bit much, since I know it's gonna get stolen.

That's really rough. Was it failure of the lock, or failure of what you were locking it to? Hard to imagine a good U-lock around the main tubes of the frame, then around some solid object like a bike rack or a metal fence, being defeated. Cable locks can, unfortunately, be easily cut. Most of the time, thieves will overlook beat-up old bikes, particularly hipster-type commuters, preferring flashy new road and mountain bikes, so your $35 Cragslist special probably contributes to its own theft-deterrence. Can you possibly park it indoors at home and work?
 
Target doesn't sell bicycles, a better description would be "cr@pcycles."

Of course I may be somewhat biased. My wheels cost more probably two entire bicycles put together. I spent about $1000 18 months ago to have my bicycle frame repaired/upgraded, then stripped and repainted. That doesn't count probably another $1000 in componentry on it. Now THAT is a bicycle - and even then not a real expensive one as those things go.

Another expression I've heard is "BSO" (Bicycle-Shaped Object). Most of our adult Magna's fall into that category, though the Huffy's and NEXT's we used to carry were probably worse. I'm not going to disparage anything we sell while on the clock. For adult bikes, I call them our "value" brand for short, recreational rides, or maybe a knock-around bike on a college campus so you won't take a big loss if it's stolen. I try to steer guests who I think might be serious, fit riders, to the far end of the bike display to the Pacific/Schwinns. Those still use somewhat cheaper components, but you won't feel that the bike is working against you while riding. I also mention the Forge brand bikes that we sell online. Those have even higher-grade frames and components, and some of them even come in different frame sizes. Weather has been unseasonably warm here, so bike sales have been extremely strong. What's unusual this year is that sales of our higher-end models have been very strong, selling many more Schwinn's than Magna's. Reading bike industry news, I understand that the U.S. might even break the 1973 record for bike sales, going over 20 million this year, which is even more than the number of automobiles sold.

I have a factory stock bike that cost about $1K, and occasionally ride it to work (we are a low-risk store, I use a U-lock on our extremely sturdy bike rack, it's in view of the security cameras, and AP checks on it during their rounds). It's really the only way to go if you are going to put a lot of mileage on a bike, and don't want to be fighting the equipment due to friction losses and parts failures. Still, it's hard to sell that much bike to someone who isn't sure that they will like cycling and ride very often. The dilemma is to not sell them something so cheap and clunky that the bike itself unnecessarily turns them off from cycling.
 
Mine is a $35 piece of crap I bought off Craigslist. Been going strong for 2 years with it. I've had four bikes stolen while locked up, so I tend to just go with bad ones that if they get taken, I don't really care. Even with that said, getting a Target bike would still be a bit much, since I know it's gonna get stolen.

Tell your SFT you know me -- I'm sure he'll store it in the generator room for you :music2:
 
Another expression I've heard is "BSO" (Bicycle-Shaped Object). Most of our adult Magna's fall into that category, though the Huffy's and NEXT's we used to carry were probably worse. I'm not going to disparage anything we sell while on the clock. For adult bikes, I call them our "value" brand for short, recreational rides, or maybe a knock-around bike on a college campus so you won't take a big loss if it's stolen. I try to steer guests who I think might be serious, fit riders, to the far end of the bike display to the Pacific/Schwinns. Those still use somewhat cheaper components, but you won't feel that the bike is working against you while riding. I also mention the Forge brand bikes that we sell online. Those have even higher-grade frames and components, and some of them even come in different frame sizes. Weather has been unseasonably warm here, so bike sales have been extremely strong. What's unusual this year is that sales of our higher-end models have been very strong, selling many more Schwinn's than Magna's. Reading bike industry news, I understand that the U.S. might even break the 1973 record for bike sales, going over 20 million this year, which is even more than the number of automobiles sold.

I have a factory stock bike that cost about $1K, and occasionally ride it to work (we are a low-risk store, I use a U-lock on our extremely sturdy bike rack, it's in view of the security cameras, and AP checks on it during their rounds). It's really the only way to go if you are going to put a lot of mileage on a bike, and don't want to be fighting the equipment due to friction losses and parts failures. Still, it's hard to sell that much bike to someone who isn't sure that they will like cycling and ride very often. The dilemma is to not sell them something so cheap and clunky that the bike itself unnecessarily turns them off from cycling.

I will agree that what Target sells will probably work for somebody that goes to Target looking for a bicycle. If you want something to ride a couple of miles per day on, then go for it.

I put 250 miles or more on the road every week. A Target bike won't cut it for that.
 
Hey, a thread about bike building!

So one of my SrTLs was talking to me about my hardlines training and he suggested that I consider getting into bike assembly. Since it's spring now, we're starting to sell more and more bikes, and our two bike builders have limited availability (plus, most of their hours are in other workcenters). Would anyone care to tell me what to expect in this workcenter, what it entails, etc.?
 
Hey, a thread about bike building!

So one of my SrTLs was talking to me about my hardlines training and he suggested that I consider getting into bike assembly. Since it's spring now, we're starting to sell more and more bikes, and our two bike builders have limited availability (plus, most of their hours are in other workcenters). Would anyone care to tell me what to expect in this workcenter, what it entails, etc.?

See this recent thread:

http://www.thebreakroom.org/showthread.php/1492-Bike-Assembly
 
That's really rough. Was it failure of the lock, or failure of what you were locking it to? Hard to imagine a good U-lock around the main tubes of the frame, then around some solid object like a bike rack or a metal fence, being defeated. Cable locks can, unfortunately, be easily cut. Most of the time, thieves will overlook beat-up old bikes, particularly hipster-type commuters, preferring flashy new road and mountain bikes, so your $35 Cragslist special probably contributes to its own theft-deterrence. Can you possibly park it indoors at home and work?

First one was stupidity on my part, I only locked the front tire to the rack, and it was a quick release. At least I could keep the lock on that one. Second one they just stole a lot of bikes from our apartment, clipped the cable lock. Third one was a Target bike that I was going to sell before moving across country... and it just fell apart right when the guy I was selling it to came to look at it. Left it unlocked on our back porch by a by a busy crimeful area. Fourth one was a clip of the cable lock.

I'm in a new area now, I keep it on my backporch unlocked, but to get there you need to take a treacherous walk, so it's pretty protected. At work, we're actually allowed to keep it in the break room, so I do that no problem.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top