koffee brown

Ok, so after many years off the bike, I'm now eyeballing it fondly and wanting to get back into it. I took a bike mechanic's workshop from Park Tool sooooo many years ago and got the opportunity to purchase the entire tool set for a pretty reasonable price. After my latest move, in a moment of crazy, I brought all my spare bike accessories, including my took kit, to a non-profit bike shop that gives the inner city kids an opportunity to learn how to fix and build bikes and get hands on experience with bike mechanics. I even brought them my first beloved bike and handed it over to them.

After doing some work on my roommate's bike with the limited tools I have left (so so little!), we started talking, and now she's got me looking into riding again, but I need a new toolset and I definitely want to get another workshop under my belt. I'd prefer a quality workshop. Any ideas on where to go? I realize I can google, but getting a quality workshop from trusted people like you guys in the forums who have a lot of experience and must have knowledge about the good workshops out there means more to me than any google search.

Thanks,

koffee

CliffordK

I've only bought tools one at a time, and keep my eyes open for good used spares. My best chain tool was an older Park that I picked up at a neighbor's garage sale.

If you've worked on bikes in the past, you may well have an idea of what you need.
.If you are working on mainly your own bikes, then choose what you need to support what you have. And, buy more as you diversify. There are quite a few different bottom brackets.

Iride01 

If you have to have tools in order to get a bike, then you probably need something to fiddle with more so than you want to ride. Sound's more like an excuse not to get a bike.

Since my kids are grown up, it's really surprising how little I have to do to my current bikes and even the bikes of my oldest son that rides with me quite a bit. If it wasn't for component changes just because I could, there wouldn't be much more than an occasional brake or DR adjustment. Certainly I haven't worn anything out in a long time that required replacement.

dsbrantjr

Any chance you could get the bike shop to let you use the tools you gave them?

3alarmer 

.
...some of the local bike co-ops give classes. They vary in quality of instruction from pretty good to less pretty good (depending on the teacher).
I used to teach classes at the one here, and mine were pretty good. I even taught a couple of rounds of wheel construction here.

But in general there are not that many eager students, and the supply of them is quickly exhausted. The less eager ones have a tendency to restrict the level at which you can teach .

A lot of people on this forum seem enthusiastic about the various instructional videos on Youtube, but the only one I've any experience with is on overhauling SA 3 speed hubs. Which most people don't do any more.


IIRC, I mostly learned this stuff out of books, and by doing it while following along from a book as needed. I wish I could be more help. But not enough to go very far out of my way to do it.
The books many of the older forum dwellers learned from are things like Jobst Brandt's book on wheels, the old 4th edition of the Sutherland's Manual, and Bicycling Science ( to try and sort myth from reality in the stuff you read elsewhere.)

But the newer bikes are all pretty different with regard to a lot of that stuff, so their tech documents are shown online if available.

Sheldon Browne online is often a good source if you have a specific issue you're trying to figure out.


Do yourself a favor and don't buy a "tool set". Most of them are kind of junked up with tools you might not want or need, and some are of lesser quality. Except for maybe a set of JIS screwdrivers, a decent set of metric Allen wrenches, and a decent quality set of metric combination wrenches, consider buying job specific tools off Amazon as they are required in your experience. Anyway, that's how I did it.

3alarmer 

..
...forgot these: a good quality floor pump, tyre irons, and something called a bead jack are all essential to your continued happiness as a bicyclist. Road tyres run at higher pressures and the beads are tighter these days. Annd a good quality cable and housing cutter. Pedro's is good enough.

grayEZrider

Stay in good graces with a LBS and you can probably buy used tools from them cheap. They usually have a lot of replaced nearly worn out tools around that serve them no purpose but would probably last you for many years. It's a win/win for everyone.