Lawrence Sustainability Network--Lawrence, KS


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Workshop Notes: “Basic Bicycle Maintenance” and “Carrying Stuff on Your Bicycle”
Midwest Alternative Energy Fair, June, 2006 Write-up by Natalya Lowther

I attended these two workshops because I currently depend on my bicycle for most of my transportation needs around Lawrence. There have been several periods in my life when I’ve relied on bicycles for all or most of my transportation, and this is one of them.

As I pulled up to a stop light on my bike the other day, carefully balancing at very low speed trying to avoid a full foot-on-the-ground stop before the light changed, the guy in the pickup that pulled up next to me rolled down his passenger window. “Your saddlebags ROCK!” he hollered.

I have to agree. The guy who did the bicycle workshops introduced me to “bike buckets.” Bolt two hooked metal straps near the top edge of a recycled square plastic bucket (mine are a matching pair of bright yellow cat litter buckets), and thread a short piece of bungie cord with hook through a third hole near the middle of the same side: that’s a bike bucket. It hooks onto the conventional metal rack behind my bike seat, and hangs alongside the rear tire of the bike. I have one on each side. They can be easily removed and carried into the house, contents and all. I can plunk my heavy backpack in one of them and arrive at my destination without a backpack-shaped sweat stain on my shirt on a hot afternoon. I can carry an amazing amount of groceries in them, even short boards and tools. They form a platform on top of which I can strap even more things. And far from being ridiculed, I’ve gotten frequent compliments on them.(OK, in all honesty, I do feel a bit conspicuous as a rolling billboard for Tidy Cat. I was planning to coat them with self-stick vinyl and some good bumper stickers, but whenever I mention this to admirers, they veto the idea. Go figure.)

We saw several great trailers for bicycles. The commercially produced cargo trailer was the “Bob” trailer, which balances between the hitch (hooks onto a special rear axle that must be installed on the bike) and the trailer’s one rear tire. Adding a kickstand helps stabilize it for parking. This lightweight trailer tracks behind the bike well, and is good off-road as well as on. But, in ice and snow, a dual-wheel trailer is better.

This guy says he can haul up to 300lbs. on his 2' x 4' home-made welded-frame trailer. For example, an upright freezer! Based on my own bike trailer experience, I’m guessing that he lives in fairly level territory. He’s also bigger and younger than I am. Nevertheless, the flat trailer design looks much easier to load than the odd, sloping, tapered shape of the plastic child-toting trailer I use for transport. Two bike forks welded to a 3/4"steel tube frame support the wheels with a slight camber (1/8" over 4") to give strength when turning corners. The tongue telescopes into a piece of 1" tubing, so he can haul lumber up to 12' long, or a canoe. It has stake pockets with removable sides.

He designed the smaller cart with the average tinkerer in mind–no welding needed. $15 in parts, plus the wheels (garden cart style); a hacksaw, drill and sledgehammer; and about an hour....I’m designing mine in my head right now! The axle is ½" “all thread” rod through a piece of 3/4" square tubing bolted through the sheet of plywood that forms the cart’s body. The tongue is metal electrical conduit with a 45 degree bend. The ball joint from the steering joint of a garden tractor forms a flexible hitch.

Weight distribution on a bike trailer is important. Center of gravity should be as low as possible, and not too much weight should be on the tongue. A trailer that hitches to the rear axle gives a more stable rig than one (like mine) that hitches to the seat post of the bicycle. Front panniers and handlebar baskets tend to interfere with the bicycle’s balance (this has certainly been my own experience).

When pulling a trailer, use gears to avoid pedaling too slowly...faster pedaling is easier on one’s joints and muscles. Proper seat height adjustment is important; the legs should almost completely extend at the bottom of the stroke.

I’ve been riding a bicycle as my main form of transportation off and on for more than 25 years now, so you’d think I’d know a thing or two about maintenance. Knowing, unfortunately, isn’t the same as doing, and over the years lack of practice has reduced what little knowledge I began with to some vague notions about putting something on the chain now and then, and keeping air in the tires. So I swallowed my pride and went to the session on basic bicycle maintenance.

This guy really helped me out by boiling it down to a few simple steps: Lube the chain when it squeaks. Inflate the tires properly, and patch them when they get holes. Don’t leave the bike in the rain, snow, etc. Clean off winter salt. Take it to a bike shop once a year for an all-over lube job & adjustment.

I always thought of the bike shop as a last-ditch expensive thing...that taking it to the bike shop was a sign of my own personal failure to know and do everything, and the expense was well-deserved punishment for my laziness and stupidity. OK, I’m over that now! The bike shop visit seems pretty cheap compared to taking a car to the mechanic. Let the pros do their jobs. I don’t HAVE to do everything myself.

About half the moving parts on a bicycle are in the chain. There are two types of lubricants, wet and dry. And then there’s WD-40 (my old favorite), which actually only lubricates until it evaporates and then works primarily to attach dirt to things, especially chains and hands. Use the dry type lube: a paraffin base in mineral spirits, available at bike shops. The chain will stay clean and not make greasy black marks on your hands or clothes (I’ll believe that when I see it, but it’s sure worth a try). To switch, clean the gunk off the chain with mineral spirits or Dawn dish detergent and an old toothbrush. To apply the lubricant, either hang the bike from a convenient post or tree branch stub, or turn it upside down, hold the bottle against the rear brace, and backpedal 5 times while applying the lubricant.

Chains stretch as they wear, and then they don’t match up to the gears properly. If the chain isn’t replaced regularly, the sprocket may wear, and then you need to replace both the chain and the sprocket, which is more expensive. When this sort of advanced wear occurs, the chain may “jump”. Bike shops can measure the amount a chain has stretched and tell when it needs replaced, before sprocket damage occurs.

A good emergency kit for short (about town) trips would include hex wrenches, phillips & flat screw drivers, frame pump, chain tool, tire patch kit, and tire levers.

Modern cables are stainless (I’m a big fan of stainless. It withstands greater levels of neglect.) Usually they have barrel adjusters for both brake and derailleur adjustments.

My personal choice this past 8 months since my return from Canada has been to put off owning a motor vehicle as long as possible. After attending these workshops, I’m even more enthused about the idea of long-term car non-ownership. To me, making a long-term commitment to commuter bicycling now includes: Carrying a light-weight tarp to cover the bike when it has to sit out in bad weather; rigging up a stand at home where I can easily and regularly lube the chain with a dry-type lube; taking it to a bike shop annually for maintenance. And in the near future, I’ll probably do the research to help me purchase a much better quality bike than my current hand-me-down, as well as design and build a trailer that will allow me to transport more & bigger things with ease.

But no matter what, I’m not giving up my Tidy Cat buckets!

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Natalya rides a bike with a trailer.