UniChris

I've been thinking about disposable culture, how despite biking "some" growing up there was never any need to do real maintenance, and how much fun I've been having lately wrenching on used bikes.

So I'm thinking of gifting my nephew a small-frame 26 - as a box of loose parts.

Not as a "hey kid, good luck!" but as a a learning project to do together, kind of like the RC hobby kit we build together last spring. I bought the bike for next to nothing mostly because it had a few decent components I wanted, but while the wheels turned out to be rusty steel spokes and hubs, it's a decent aluminum frame that apart from technically being WSD probably would fit him for a year or so, and then could be handed down to his sister (he's decided his 24 is too small, but while he likes to ride my brother-in-laws 26 around the neighborhood, he can't actually stand over the top tube).

At this point I've taken almost everything apart, except for the actual bottom bracket - that doesn't need service, but I'll probably buy the tool for my own curiosity anyway. Have decided it needs new cables, at least a new chain and 7-speed freewheel, undecided on the chain rings / crankset yet, but those are all parts than could be moved around if this "bike" ultimately gets abandoned.

Repacked the wheel bearings and they're not impossible for a knock around bike (almost tempted to re-mount their knobby tires and swap them on my utility bike when it snows) but kind of thinking the current wheels could be temporary placeholders and then we could build some new ones around some budget doublewall rims.

PeteHski

Great idea. Love it! Those are the kind of presents you remember for a lifetime.

oris

It's honestly a cool project that even as an adult I'd love to do.

Juan Foote

Even just the experience and learning ability towards mechanical skill and learning how the thing works should be a great project. Great idea.

obrentharris 

How old is the nephew? If he's 11 or 12 and has a good attention span you both might have a fine time. Younger than that and you may lose his interest and find yourself doing most of the work.
Brent

CliffordK

The kid will likely need a mentor, whether it is you, or his mother/father.

I'd have done a similar thing, but my nephew is about 300 miles away, and my brother has the skills, but doesn't seem to want to work with him on projects like a bike.

Ironfish653

I like the idea; my oldest kiddo and I did this with his current bike ( built out of a Raleigh C40, with a couple adaptations)
Heck, my first ‘ten-speed’ came in the box from the PX; I spent most of my 12th birthday on the back porch, putting it together.

I’d get the ‘dirty work’ done first, like repacking bearings and truing the wheels before you give it to him; that’s the tedious stuff that will make you loose interest quickly, assembly is the fun part.

if you have enough parts on hand, bring him the ‘kit’ with a couple options; like a choice of knobby tires or ‘slicks’ and maybe a couple or three handlebar shapes to pick from.
Getting a choice in how the final result turns out will definitely increase your nephew’s buy-in on the project.

freeranger

I think it's a great idea. My first "good" bike was built from a box of parts. Still remember it-had a SA 3 spd hub. I painted the frame with a spray can. Cleaned and adjusted the front bearings, learned all kinds of things working on that bike. Guess I was 9-10 yrs. old. My father and I also built my younger sister's Honda 100 off road motorcycle from a box of parts (it was given to her when she was 13yrs. old or so). Learned a lot putting them together (with some help). Seemed I was always learning something-like to turn off the breaker before replacing an electrical outlet! Hopefully, your nephew will have memories as fond (minus getting shocked). Good times!

UniChris

What we did on last year's project was to work on it in fairly short stretches several days a week

I kind of find packing loose ball bearings part of the fun, but I may take them apart and degrease first.

I may have to actually torque the locknuts, but things like judging if they're binding/rumbly, smooth, or wobbly can be participatory (and to some extent, moving the cone and lucknut together to adjust is easier than torquing them against each other)

Fortunately the old stand-in wheels that came on the frame don't need truing, which is probably good because I suspect the nipples are threadlocked with rust. Just resorted to clipping spokes to get a hub out of a long ago dumpster taco find after breaking a seized spokes trying to get them to turn.

If we do build a wheel I'm thinking what we would do together is the lacing and getting things to the point where the nipple driver walks out, so it starts to feel like parts became a wheel. But my doing some additional tuning later at night may happen.

That is a thought - my real temptation actually would be to paint the frame, but I suspect that's a rabbit hole that would lead to poor results without investing far too much effort.

Tire wise one of the things would be to get to the point where he can change them (actually that was the original idea) so perhaps between the existing nothing special knobbies and some slightly narrower road slicks. Maybe I'll hold off on ordering the freewheel and let him try the 14-28 and 14-34 I have on other projects (or at least see if the allegedly long cage derailleur can truly do that).oh well, looks like officially it can't handle the 34 tooth wide range.

BlazingPedals

I love the idea! Just make sure that you and tools are available to help him.

livedarklions

If it were me, it would be a terrible idea because my general demeanor when working with mechanical stuff is not good--the kid would just learn some new four letter vocabulary and really bad mechanical skills. From you, it sounds like the bike and the experience would be a damn cool gift. Maybe he'll work on it with his sister when it comes time to pass it down.

UniChris

Yes, working on stuff can be a mix of reward and frustration! I'm hoping this goes fairly straightforward though.

In my mind the ordering is something like

1. Repack steering and attach handlebars.
2. Repack bearings in beater wheels, nevermind that I already did that, it's the experience and knowledge
3. Replace rim strip, install tubes and tires on the beater wheels.
4. Set frame on beater wheels, at which point it can be balance bike tested
5. Setup the brakes (before drivetrain) - put everything back on, cut new housing pieces to match the measured lengths of old, adjust, test
6. Drivetrain - this is where things might get four-letter-ish and some new parts may be needed
7. Possibly build new wheels - again some possible frustration, but also very optional as the existing wheels do work and we might find better used ones

Something I'm trying to leave open ended is if this is supposed to be his riding bike for the year, or if it's just an activity/learning project.

It looks like such a tiny frame, though it is a 26 and when I take actual measurements the main difference from what I'd ride are a few vertical inches (I did personally ride it almost 2 miles home, though not exactly efficiently). He's decided his 24 is too small, but a 26 where he can actually stand over the top tube is going to be something small like this, unless he stays in clamber-up mode like when riding brother-in-law's around the block. Turns out incidentally that the idea that one should be able to stand over the top tube wasn't initially a given - you had to climb onto a penny farthing after scootering it, and so that didn't seem out of place in the early safety bicycle era.

frogman

I like the idea. As CliffordK said he will need a mentor...........

UniChris

Fortunately they're a mile away on the rail trail, so I'm often over there.

Dropped off the parts today, he seemed excited about the concept and declared the frame was his size (based on ? though my earlier survey in the garage with a tape measure confirms), but then got distracted by the fact that the long broken Wii was finally getting a new DVD drive. Kids today...

In all seriousness, there's potential but it will also have to be balanced by attention span - I think (hope) the little bit now and then plan will work.

Plus we had a little discussion of the concept of ball bearings, demonstrated by rolling stuff on the kitchen table with a pen as the roller bearing. He observed that brake cables aren't actually electric cables, so I pulled one of the new ones out of the package and we had a little tug of war with the cable ends vs the housing. Needless to say, di2 went unmentioned.

frogman

I understand about their attention span I think it is a great idea.

CAT7RDR

I would think disassembly, labeling and photos is just as important as assembly/repair.

UniChris

First day went pretty well, we repacked the headset and put the fork back in, repacked the rear hub with new balls, decided the front was okay (I did it last week), then installed the rim strips, mounted and inflated the tires, set it on wheels, and put the quill and bars back on. So basically the box of parts became a bigger kid balance bike. Fit seems pretty good, mid range on the stock short-ish seatpost.

Next time, brakes, and then last drivetrain. Replacement chain arrived today, will probably take the comparable freewheel off my beater bike, and try this one's on that in the meantime and see if it works or skips.

zandoval 

Yep... My Dad got a discount of 2.00 USD when he bought me a brand new 39.00 USD disassembled Western Flyer. It came in a wooden crate with two dumbbell wrenches. Of course I put Streamers and a Milk Carton Flapper on the back wheel for the first ride...

If he doesn't already know how to handle tubes, flats, and wheels this could be a most important teaching point.

UniChris

That was actually the original goal - in truth, the first time I ever personally needed to mount a tire was on my first wheel build, only a few years ago.

I'm not sure the used tubes we put back in there don't have slow leaks - I kind of thought one did, neither lost anything when I left them at just a self-shaping pressure on their own for a few days, but we'll see if I find the tires are flat next time I'm over there. If we end up having to chase down and patch a leak, or swap a tube, in my mind that's all the better as a learning experience.

He was actually able to do most of the tire mounting himself - I helped hold what was already on the rim in place, and at one point accidentally popped the rest of the bead on, so levered it back off again and had him do it. Wouldn't quite say he's ready to do it on his own out on the trail (I'd hardly relish that myself) but the concept of what is involved should be there as a memory. As tires go these weren't bad to mount, and of course the next few years will bring adult level hand strength to aid the task.

And he tightened the axle nuts on the dropouts himself - all I did was apply counter torque as he did the first side to keep the axle from spinning. Granted, it was a little simpler to get the wheels in with no chain and derailleur yet on there to manipulate, but one step at a time.

I did occur to me that in the discussion of which way various components should be installed, I just oriented the fork correctly and didn't ask him to figure that out - oops! Though to his credit, he did figure out that the stem extends forwards from the quill and not back.

Jax Rhapsody

I would've loved to had done that with my kids, if they weren't ripped from me. My oldest at three used to try to copy me with his plastic tools, on his stroller and stuff.

UniChris

A second Sunday afternoon wrenching in the basement with nephew saw the project bike assembled to the point where he was able to test ride it around the back yard just before dusk.

Had initially thought we might get it going before a ride yesterday while it was warm, but timing didn't work out to do that, so nephew settled on his 24" for that outing and his friend joined in with the whole family for 12 miles on the rail trail, the first for most since last fall. Afterwards while waiting for friend's parents to pick him up nephew took his friend downstairs to show off what was then still a much less complete project.

Even after today's work, setup for the test ride was still a bit marginal as I didn't get things adjusted to shift into all gears until after we brought it back in for the night, but doing that more tedious part on my own afterwards (while he played minecraft!) was probably the right call, and fortunately it's large enough that I'll be able to only somewhat awkwardly ride it a bit later for a real check. We should probably grab the narrower saddle off his 24, and we're still going to need to see if we can get the rear wheel running a bit more true to eliminate some marginal brake rub I hadn't notice before. Obviously out of true can occur on any wheel but it's odd that a bike with halfway decent brake and derailleur components has such cheap, rusty wheels, so maybe there really is a wheelbuild project in this, too - not like some decent 26" wheels can't have a life beyond this particular frame even if it's not handed down to the niece.

Ultimately regardless if it ends up his riding bike for this summer or not, as a learning experience it's been a great success - even for me there were steps I'd thought about, but not actually done before.

Lostin76

Loved building bikes as a kid and young teen. I think this is an awesome idea and glad it seems to have been successful.

CliffordK

My brother's first road bike was a little 24" Gitane, I think. 5-speed.

Dad wanted to convert it to racing, so he bought some lightweight aluminum rims, aluminum hubs, and I think double butted spokes. Dad made a truing stand and he and my brother built up the wheels.

I missed that bike build, but did get to ride it when my brother outgrew it.

I did, however, get the chance to convert my next bike from Sewups to Clinchers, as well as doing a bunch of other tuning and tinkering on it.

A lot of good cycling memories.

SparkyBeacon 

Awesome idea! I just put a reminder on my calendar. When my 2-1/2 year-old grand-daughter turns 10, I need to consider shopping for a bike that fits this theme. Who knows if bikes will be wrenchable then? Loose ball bearings? She might have the right genes. Dad is an engineer and mom is a physicist.

I have never done a future calendar entry like this. I hope I am alive and functioning.

morecommas

I think if he has shown interest in such things then it's a great idea.