eldercycling

Hi all! I am from Chicago and am fairly new to cycling and repairing bikes. I started cycling a a couple years ago when I got a Specialized Allez Comp from a friend. Even more recently I have become completely obsessed with working on bikes after a friend found an old Motobecane Mirage in an alley. He works as a bike mechanic and wasn't interested in working on it so I took it and committed myself to restoring it. I cleaned it up, changed the old cottered crank and bottom bracket to a new GXP configuration and it is my new daily rider. I also finally, with my new found knowledge and enthusiasm for repairing bikes, fixed up a bike I inherited from my grandfather. It is some old threespeed he got from K-Mart in the 70s and it had nothing but loose ball bearings in the bottom bracket.

I've really enjoyed working on bikes recently as it has been a very helpful and sanity preserving activity while I complete my dissertation. I'm very interested in fixing up old road bikes and giving them new life. I also have lots of questions and I will benefit greatly from the collected wisdom here. Long time reader, first time poster.

Best,

T

bikamper

Hiya. I'm in Elburn and have been cycling and futzing with bikes since the early 60s.

rm -rf

Check out the Park Tool repair guides. They explain the methods in detail, step-by-step. Some bike components aren't obvious at first, but are easy once the correct methods are followed.
For example, threadless headsets: the top cap is only for adjusting the bearing pre-load, but that's not obvious until I understood how it worked.

eldercycling

Oh I already got the Big Blue Book of Bicycle Repair and have admired C. Calvin Jones' moustache on. youtube many many times.