How did I not break anything in the first few hundred carbon bars?
What happens if a torque wrench isn’t calibrated properly?
And as you so astutely pointed out, what happens if you don’t hear the torque wrench’s click?
How did I not break anything in the first few hundred carbon bars?
What happens if a torque wrench isn’t calibrated properly?
And as you so astutely pointed out, what happens if you don’t hear the torque wrench’s click?
I seriously doubt even cheap torque wrenches at 5-7Nm are so off that they will break carbon parts.
The click thing is something everyone who’s using a torque wrench correctly learns to check for. The biggest danger is for the first-timers or folks with a new tool and not knowing what the click sounds like or feels like, and going past, which yes, does happen. But I’ll bet those same users aren’t any better off with the non-torque wrench if they’re willing to apply so much torque.
The EASIEST way by far to get a noob (like me) to carbon parts to install well is to get a torque wrench and do it right. Some parts it’s def optional (like a carbon seatpost screw) but for the faceplate bolts that fasten down the handlebar - if it’s carbon on carbon, it’s pretty easy for a noob to mess up the torques there, especially since there are 4 screws which should be at equal torque if you’ve done it right. Very easy to overtighten these without a torque wrench.
It’s funny - I’ve heard stories from others saying how similarly they were ‘forced to learn’ to save cash, but as an adult who recently learned it, I find it hard to believe one can ‘save’ cash without first plunking down the $300-$500 for necessary tools and parts to get going.
I’d see this happening if your dad’s got a good general toolset and work area which you just need to supplement with a few bike tools, but otherwise, deciding to go from zero wrenching to more than minimal actually has a fairly high startup cost, imo. A good bike stand alone will run $150+.
Not necessarily. You can do 80% of the work with a good set of Allen Wrenches, and you don’t have to buy the ones with blue handles. My cable cutters came from a shop tech who just upgraded. I used a portable coat rack or hitch rack for years before buying a work stand, and I got one from Amazon that cost 1/4 of a park stand. You can spend a lot of money on tools, just like you can spend a lot of money on bikes. Or, you can build your box by being resourceful, and get the job done.
We’re all a little prone to upsell ourselves to the best available gear. I’m definitely guilty of that. But buying tools with blue handles or even yellow handles doesn’t make you a better bike mechanic.
I have seen many carbon bars and stems crushed by my customers who were using torque wrenches.
I have installed a few thousand carbon bars without a torque wrench and haven’t broken any.
I’ll bet that your customers were incorrectly using their torque wrenches. There’s simply no way that if you’re using a torque wrench correctly, that you’ll crush a carbon bar when installing something at 5-7Nm. I almost made this error myself when I started with the torque wrench and didn’t know to recognize the ‘click’, but once I did, it’s nowhere near enough pressure to crush a carbon bar.
And again, if YOU install hundreds/thousands of bars, YOU can def do it with no torque wrench. Wanna bet the newb who’s on their first carbon bar installation is going to do it right? I’ll bet not - it’ll be either dangerously loose or overly tight.
What he said and what he said.
Zero, I’d much rather drive to my LBS and let them take care of it. So many of you hate swimming with a passion, well, I hate bike maintenance with a similar passion. 
It’s funny - I’ve heard stories from others saying how similarly they were ‘forced to learn’ to save cash, but as an adult who recently learned it, I find it hard to believe one can ‘save’ cash without first plunking down the $300-$500 for necessary tools and parts to get going.
I’d see this happening if your dad’s got a good general toolset and work area which you just need to supplement with a few bike tools, but otherwise, deciding to go from zero wrenching to more than minimal actually has a fairly high startup cost, imo. A good bike stand alone will run $150+.
Not necessarily. You can do 80% of the work with a good set of Allen Wrenches, and you don’t have to buy the ones with blue handles. My cable cutters came from a shop tech who just upgraded. I used a portable coat rack or hitch rack for years before buying a work stand, and I got one from Amazon that cost 1/4 of a park stand. You can spend a lot of money on tools, just like you can spend a lot of money on bikes. Or, you can build your box by being resourceful, and get the job done.
We’re all a little prone to upsell ourselves to the best available gear. I’m definitely guilty of that. But buying tools with blue handles or even yellow handles doesn’t make you a better bike mechanic.
80% only gets you so far, though. And the last 20% is REALLY important.
I also don’t buy all the primo Allen wrenches and screwdrivers - I in fact have fairly inexpensive ones.
But here’s a bunch of stuff I feel is pretty necessary for more than trivial wrenching aside form the allen wrench (which I agree is the most commonly used tool)
- Bike stand. $150+. Sure, you can get by without one, but tuning a derailleur is seriously annoying without one.
- Derailleur hangar adjustment tool $75. I know, most people don’t own this, but if you need one (and it’s very possible you do if your RD is slightly off),there’s no other good tool to replace this. Single best tool for perfect shifting. This is a great example of how you can do the job 98% right without the tool, and still have your shifting be annoyingly slightly off because of a tiny required hangar adjustment.
- Torque wrench for carbon parts $50+
- Other bike-specific tools: chain whip, pedal wrench, BB remover, high quality cable cutter: $50-$100
Easily $300 for this stuff, and if you really are wrenching your bike more than trivially, you gotta have access to these. I seriously doubt anyone can do a good job building up a bike from the frame or replacing and tuning bike parts without most if not all of these things.
I actually think I have as close to a budget-setup as one can get, and it’s easily over $300; I only have a few Park tools.
Zero, I’d much rather drive to my LBS and let them take care of it. So many of you hate swimming with a passion, well, I hate bike maintenance with a similar passion.
Well, I’ll be the first here to say that even with all the skills and tools I’ve recently acquired for being able to do basic install/tuning of the drivetrain of my bike, I still dislike spending the time doing it. Once I’m actually doing it, I get in the flow and it’s all good ,but I dislike the idea of spending my time doing bike wrenching otherwise. Furthermore, since I do each part so infrequently, I have to re-research the methods to do it every time which gets seriously annoying. And if something goes wrong (which happens surprisingly frequently) all hell can break loose and I can lose hours messing with something that an experienced LBS tech would do in 10 mins.
Zero, I’d much rather drive to my LBS and let them take care of it. So many of you hate swimming with a passion, well, I hate bike maintenance with a similar passion.
Well, I’ll be the first here to say that even with all the skills and tools I’ve recently acquired for being able to do basic install/tuning of the drive-train of my bike, I still dislike spending the time doing it. Once I’m actually doing it, I get in the flow and it’s all good ,but I dislike the idea of spending my time doing bike wrenching otherwise. Furthermore, since I do each part so infrequently, I have to re-research the methods to do it every time which gets seriously annoying. And if something goes wrong (which happens surprisingly frequently) all hell can break loose and I can lose hours messing with something that an experienced LBS tech would do in 10 min.
BINGO!!! You have precisely summarized the reasons why I no longer attempt bike maintenance. I tried way back in HS when I got my first “10-speed” and at first it seemed kind of cool and mellow, just puttering around in the garage with the music turned up, but soon 4 hrs had passed and I STILL could not get my rear dérailleur to shift properly. Decided after that incident that just changing flat tires would be enough “bike maintenance” for me. I mow my own grass, trim my trees, clean my gutters, clean my own house, cook my own meals, and repair my wooden fence, but none of these requires much in the way of mechanical aptitude.
When I was 7, and got my first flat, my dad took me to the local toy store and we bought a patch kit. He patched the tube while I watched, and then told me “Now you know how to do it.” That was the last time anyone ever worked on one of my bikes.
A few years later, at the start of the first wave of BMX (early '70s), my friends and I would scour the neighborhood every trash day, looking for parts we could salvage. My first few BMX bikes were built almost entirely from trashed bikes. I didn’t know that spoke wrenches existed, so I got really good at truing wheels using a 6" crescent wrench. From there, I spent a lot of time just looking at parts, learning to understand how they worked. I always spent a lot of time on bikes, and a few years after getting into triathlon and road racing, I got a job with a manufacturer, and have been working in the industry ever since, at various manufacturers and shops…
I started because I didn’t have much choice - was a teenager with little cash, particularly for service but also for parst. As an example, in the spring of my senior year of high school I had two bikes - a beater I used as a bike messenger in the afternoons and a racing bike, but only one set of cranks. So I had to switch them every Friday night and again every Sunday night.
I still pretty much do everything, except for a few rare frame-related tasks for which I don’t have proper tools. And I also buy built wheels to save time, whereas up to about ten years ago I’d build some wheels. This is just to save time.
any other suggestions on learning to maintain my own bike?Just do it. The Park Tool website is a key resource.
It’s funny - I’ve heard stories from others saying how similarly they were ‘forced to learn’ to save cash, but as an adult who recently learned it, I find it hard to believe one can ‘save’ cash without first plunking down the $300-$500 for necessary tools and parts to get going.
I’d see this happening if your dad’s got a good general toolset and work area which you just need to supplement with a few bike tools, but otherwise, deciding to go from zero wrenching to more than minimal actually has a fairly high startup cost, imo. A good bike stand alone will run $150+.I’ve never had a repair stand. After some time I got a little “y-stand” for lifting the rear wheel to clean the bike - $20 back when I was young…
Hmmmm, I didn’t have carbon parts when I was a teenager. Still have none other than the fork blades and frame on my bikes…
Here’re stuff I remembered getting as a teenager.
Cable cutter/pliers (borrowed from my dad).
3 or 4 Allen keys (nowadays on a multi tool is the cheap way)
Cone wrenches
Spoke wrench
Chain tool
Screwdrivers (borrowed from my dad)
Adjustable wrenches (borrowed from my dad).
BB tool
Headset wrench
Freewheel tool
Tape measure, pen, pencil (family had them)
Grease.
I don’t see how it could have been cheaper taking the bike to a shop for the stuff I did with these tools.
- Bike stand. $150+. Sure, you can get by without one, but tuning a derailleur is seriously annoying without one.If you have an indoor trainer you can put your bike on that and adjust the derailleurs quite well.
I seriously doubt anyone can do a good job building up a bike from the frame or replacing and tuning bike parts without most if not all of these things.
Tuning derailleurs and rim brakes requires a few allen keys and a screwdriver. I think you can get all the tools you need on a multi-tool for $10. Depending on the brakes, you might also need a cone wrench - that’s another $10. That same stuff allows headset adjustment and work on alloy bars/stems/seat/satpost - assuming you are careful. Add in cable cutters, a file and big nail and you can replace cables and housing, and therefor install derailleurs and brakes.
People have done good jobs adjusting that stuff for decades with those tools.
80% only gets you so far, though. And the last 20% is REALLY important. It got me far enough to ride to school/messenger, race bikes well, and ride my bike across the US one summer. Yes, I had shops do the stuff for which I didn’t have tools - back in the day that would be facing the BB shell and headtube, pressing in the headset - that is, frame-related stuff with expensive tools.
You’re setting up all sorts of shifting goalposts - is your point to not work on bikes at all because the tools are too expensive, or because we need an expensive hanger tool therefore don’t learn to adjust derailleurs at home to save money? What?
If budget is an issue, ignore expensive tools needed for work on frames. But adjusting derailleurs, brakes, truing wheels, can all be done with very little in the way of tools. Add in cable cutters and you can string cables and install a lot of stuff. Not much $ for that.
I was going to say that’s why Park Tool make TW-1 but check and they stopped making it. But that is the sort or thing most people should use for the low torque stuff.
I learned everything from youtube. I first got started because I was just too broke to go to the LBS. I’ve actually stripped and built an entire road bike. Generally on my tri bike I’ll do the chain and tires myself, and every other year get a full tune at the LBS letting them deal with metron bar end shifters, internal cabling, and gotta get that bar end tape just pretty enough.
On my road bike I do it all myself. It’s easy with external cables, especially the breaks. If my tape isn’t perfect I don’t really care. However I’ve never gotten wheels quite true. Still go to the LBS for that one.
I think I’ve tried to do almost everything I’ve needed to so far (adjusting/mounting derailluers, taking our spacers on stem, swpping cassettes, bar tape, etc). But my LBS does everything for free as long as I am the original owner of the bike, so at the first hint of something going wrong, I just bring it in (I’ve spent hours trying to get a front derailleur mounted only to find out the chain catcher so was installing needed a little work in the grinder to line things up, LBS caught it in 10 minutes).
YouTube and a PDF I have from FLO cycling basically have shown me what it takes to do a complete build up. I’m a mechanical engineer who is relatively handy. I always have to try things myself if the tools are affordable.
The two best tools for internal routing are
- A flashlight to see the cable in the frame
- A strong paperclip fashioned like a hook to fish out the cable from the BB hole.
I use a headlamp… you don’t have to hold it and you have both hands to work. Good call on the hook tool, I use a broken spoke, made a hook on the end with some needle nose pliers.
On thread topic, having the right tools helps things a TON when working on a bike.
But if you mess up that’s on you and the shop to buy a replacement part. If it is an individual who breaks it then they are responsible for buying the new part.
You’ve got more room for error than someone who is working on their own bike.
I also buy built wheels to save time, whereas up to about ten years ago I’d build some wheels. This is just to save time.
I can do pretty much anything I need to, but I can’t build a wheel for shit
Never learned to do it when I was a kid working in the shop
Also, we’re only taking about road/tri bikes right? Because I was listening to the “Just Riding Along” podcast on Mountain Bike Radio last night on the ride home, and I have no fucking idea how to maintain a MTB suspension or disk brakes
I also buy built wheels to save time, whereas up to about ten years ago I’d build some wheels. This is just to save time.
I can do pretty much anything I need to, but I can’t build a wheel for shit
Never learned to do it when I was a kid working in the shop
Also, we’re only taking about road/tri bikes right? Because I was listening to the “Just Riding Along” podcast on Mountain Bike Radio last night on the ride home, and I have no fucking idea how to maintain a MTB suspension or disk brakesYes, just basic road stuff for me. I don’t know anything about suspension, disk brakes, electronic shifting, or tubeless tires but imagine I could learn if I had to.
And I remember the first time installed a threadless headset I was kind of freaked out, but just looked at Parktool.com and did it and it worked out fine.
I built my first wheel by mainly copying an existing wheel exactly with just a spoke wrench and maybe a screwdriver. Pre-WWW days. I was aware of a few concepts such as spoke twist and had been truing wheels already, so the the wheel came out fine, though it took a long time to complete. I got a book that helped me build my second one much quicker.
I actually don’t like working on bikes, though I guess I did a little in the past. But going to a shop, explaining things, waiting to get it back, etc is more annoying to me.
Oh yeah, there was this
And this
Sorry
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“It’s not a bike baby, it’s a chopper.”
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“It’s not a bike baby, it’s a chopper.”
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