Bike maintenance #1 - Puncture repair

Hurrah for bike maintenance!

As part of my job I have attended a mechanics training course to train me up good and proper to fix bikes and get them ship-shape and road-worthy. Some parts I find simple, other parts baffle me. And either way, the strange terminology of some tools and parts just made me giggle. I mean come on, 'nipples' and 'noodles' - really?!

But anyway, whether it baffles you or not, bike maintenance is an extremely useful craft(?) to master, or at least know about a little bit. It will also save you buckets of dosh as you don't have to take it to a bike shop to have them tweak a couple of wires and then charge you £50.

So, perhaps in an attempt to practice and revise what I have learnt, I am going to share little gems of bike maintenance knowledge with you. First and foremost: the puncture repair. Check out this snazzy link for a simple yet thorough guide to fixing a puncture. Extra brownie points for being able to remove a tyre without tyre levers (or spoons)...but alas my own fair hands have not yet managed this trick yet. With practice though I'm determined to master it! That'll be a fine party trick...right? :-P

January Sales

January 2012 has given me lots to do so I feel like I have been pretty busy and unable to post as much as I would like to to this blog.

However, I have not been completely removed from my bikes and bike-related stuff. Last weekend I put aside time to sort out my poor Ridgeback bike which has been neglected with a flat tyre in the shed for some time now. I wanted to change its tyres so I knew that I had to learn a bit beforehand. I got this book for Christmas and after finding a few relevant pages to read, I knew what equipment I needed and what process to take to change the bike's tyres. It was great.

I then pedalled down to Edinburgh Bike Co-op where they had a mammoth (or 'Monster') sale on and bought myself quite a bit of gear. The best thing I bought in the sale was a 'Track Pump' - a pump which is free standing and only requires a few pumps to inflate your tyres. It's changed my life completely! As I say, it only takes a few pumps to get your tyres up to their best inflation and it's amazing what a difference it makes on the roads. Also, because it's very easy to use and I store it near the front door, I can top up my tyres a lot more frequently than I used to.

It's nice to have my bike gear collection increase too!