The Urban Biking Handbook: Build, Rebuild, Tinker, Retool, Recycle, and Repair Your Bicycle for City Living: The DIY Guide to Building, Rebuilding, ... and Repairing Your Bicycle for City Living

590 Pages·2011·24.425 MB·English

by  Charles Haine

THE
URBAN BIKING
HANDBOOK
The DIY Guide to Building, Rebuilding,
Tinkering with, and Repairing Your Bicycle
for City Living
CHARLES HAINE
DEDICATTION
To my parents for getting me a bicycle for Christmas when I was 6—the best
Christmas gift ever.
To every mechanic and cycling guru who has had the patience to teach me
everything I’m lucky enough to have learned.
To all the folks at the Bicycle Co-op in Oberlin, Ohio, and the Bicycle Kitchen in
Los Angeles, California, who’ve made my life so much richer.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION: WHY RIDE BIKES?
PART I: THE RIDE
1. Choosing Your Ride
How-to: New Bike vs. Used Bike
Building a Bike from a Bare Frame
2. City Riding
Security
Parking
The Things They Carry: Choosing a Bag
Choosing Your Footwear
Fenders
Riding in Traffic
How-to: Hop a Curb
Riding with a Group
Getting Doored
Scrapes and Crashes
3. Urban Outfitting
Bike Clothing
Tools
Safety
4. Customization
Getting in the Saddle
How-to: Set Your Seat Height and Angle
Handlebars
How-to: Hack Your Bars
How-to: Change Your Drop Bars for Flat Bars
How-to: Citify a Mountain Bike
Painting Your Bike
Painted and Customized: An Idea Gallery
5. The Car-Free Lifestyle
Starting Small: A Car-Free Week
How-to: Go on a Bicycle Date
Taking a Cycling Vacation
PART II: THE BICYCLE
6. Bicycle Anatomy
Frame
Thread and Thread Direction
Cable Actuation
Bearings
The Locknut
Drive Train
Braking
How-to: Adjust Your Brakes
How-to: Get Rid of Brake Squeak
Steering
Sizing
7. Frames
Frame Materials
Frame Construction
Geometry
Suspension
Framework: An Idea Gallery
8. Tires, Tubes, and Wheels
Tire Components
Evaluating Tires
Clinchers vs. Tubulars vs. Tubeless
Inner Tubes
Tire Pressure
How-to: Fix a Flat
Wheel Components
How-to: True a Wheel
9. Bearings and Drive Train
Hubs
Gear Clusters: Freehub vs. Freewheel
How-to: Repack Loose Ball Bearings
How-to: Adjust the Cones
Headsets and Bottom Brackets
Drive Train
Chain
How-to: Lube Your Chain
How-to: Break Your Chain
Shifters
How-to: Adjust Your Shifters on the Go
How-to: Set Up Your Shifters for the First Time
10. Fixed-Gear Fixation
Building a Fixie: An Overview
The Track Hub
How-to: Convert a Geared Bike to a Fixie
Fixie Dust
PART III: THE COMMUNITY
11. Bicycle Education Space
Do-It-Together
How-to: Start a Shop
Finding a Space
Finances
Recruiting, Training, and Keeping Volunteers
Building a Community
How-to: Organize a Group Ride
12. Bike Hack Profiles and Gallery
Scraper Bikes
Glowing Bike
Choppers
Lowriders and Tall Bikes
Bike Hack Profiles
Glossary
Recommended Reading
Index
About the Author and Cophotographer
INTRODUCTION: WHY RIDE
BIKES?
We are currently in the middle of a cycling renaissance. In
the last few years the do-it-together (DIT) bicycle community
and urban cycling have exploded. All kinds of people are
riding their bikes for an increasing number of their everyday
tasks.

In Los Angeles alone, a city not known for cycling even a decade ago, there are
now monthly rides that attract thousands of cyclists riding through the day and
night, and a group ride of one sort or another nearly every night of the month.
All over the world masses of people are taking to two wheels and powering
themselves through their cities like never before.
People are taking an interest in not only owning bikes but also fixing and
customizing them themselves. “I’m not a very good mechanic” is probably the
thing I hear most often when teaching people how to fix bicycles, as if
mechanical skill is something we’re born with, like good eyesight or red hair.
For years I’ve volunteered at bicycle education spaces and I’ve observed that
anyone who is interested in learning how to build or fix a bike is able to
accomplish her goals. Sometimes it takes longer than we planned, and
sometimes the parts aren’t immediately available, and often we get really greasy,
but it turns out that bicycles are simple to fix.
Once you learn how to fix your own bicycle, two things are likely to happen:
• You’ll discover that most things are easy to repair yourself with a simple set
of tools.
• You’ll find you love your bike more.
The time it takes and the understanding you get from building and repairing your
own bicycle creates a bond that lasts. This book can help you learn the basics of
how to pick out a good new or used bicycle and fix it up or maintain it yourself.
Its mechanical sections are not intended to be exhaustive; there are many books
and online resources that can help you rebuild your 3-speed Sturmey-Archer hub
or reface your bottom bracket. (Not to mention that it’s possible to spend a
decade riding and fixing bikes without having to do such tasks.)
This book is designed as a primer for urban cycling and basic bicycle repair.
Fixing bikes and the community of people I have found who also love teaching
people about the bicycle have enriched my life in many ways, and I hope you are
able to get some of the joy I’ve found on two wheels.
The bicycle is our first means of escape. As children we are completely
dependent on our parents or the limitations of where we can reasonably walk to
get where we want to go. Then, one magical day, we are granted freedom on two
wheels: a bicycle.
The bicycle takes basic human power and augments it, expanding our range of