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Build Your Own Bike Poll Results

05.22.2012 by Ray Niekamp // Leave a Comment

When I asked last week whether you would be interested in building your own bike — or modifying an existing one — I didn’t realize that I’d touched a nerve. Apparently, a lot of riders out there have at least considered modifying a bike, but a good number have already done so — from scratch.

The final results of the poll are in. We had an n of 75. Here are the numbers:

(Click to enlarge.)

Just a reminder — because the respondents were not randomly selected, the results of this poll cannot be generalized to a wider biking population. That said, I think the numbers are interesting.

A custom-built carbon fiber framed bike by Alchemy Bicycles of Austin.

Twenty-five percent said they already have built a bike from a custom frame. Another eight percent say they plan to do that. I guess making a bike your own has a lot of attraction for a lot of cyclists, and I can empathize with that. The inspiration for the poll, Tim at An Old Guy on Two Wheels, has finished his custom build and has been riding it around town already. He loves it, and that is as it should be.

An old Trek 10-speed modified with brifters and updated components.

For the 26 percent who aren’t interested in working on a bike of their own — well, there’s still time to change your mind.

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Categories // Bikes, Maintenance Tags // repair

Would You Build a Bike From Scratch? (Poll)

05.17.2012 by Ray Niekamp // 10 Comments

My friend Tim over at An Old Guy on Two Wheels is getting close to finishing his latest project: He’s building a randonneuring bike from scratch. He had the frame custom built, and gathered together all the components for it. In recent days, he’s been apprising us of his progress. It looks like he’s going to take it out for a serious ride sooner rather than later.

Tim is an accomplished bike mechanic, and I wasn’t surprised when he first revealed his build-from-scratch plans. I, on the other hand, have often thought about refurbishing my old Raleigh 10-speed, just to do it — not that I would make it my regular ride, or anything. I just don’t have Tim’s know-how when it comes to working on bikes. (Although I’m getting better — been paying a lot of attention to online videos and some repair books I have around the house, and have done some bike repairs to the Allez that I wouldn’t have tried a year ago.)

Anyhow, I think it’s a cool idea, to either build a bike from scratch as Tim as done, or fix up an old beater into something rideable. Believe me, I’ll get around to it.

How about you? Have you ever considered building your own bike? How about taking an old bike and modifying it into something different? For example, turning a 10-speed into a fixie, or restoring a vintage bike to its original condition?

Weigh in on the following poll, if you will.

I’ll report the answers next week.

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Categories // Bikes, Maintenance Tags // repair

The New Old Crank Set

12.27.2011 by Ray Niekamp // 3 Comments

As we neared the end of the year, some issues with my bike started cropping up. Because I am me, I immediately diagnosed them as problems with the front derailleur. Because I am me, my diagnosis was 100 percent wrong.

The problem was a noise — a sort of a creak — that started whenever I pedaled in the small chain ring. When I shifted to the big ring, it was quiet. On a club ride two weekends ago, I spent as much time as possible in the big ring, just to keep from hearing the noise. But some hills were involved in that ride, and riders near me were treated to a “creak — creak — creak” noise whenever I applied power or started climbing.

I dropped it off with our club’s bike mechanic, who was surprised to be seeing me again so soon. He’d just done some work on my rear derailleur. The next day, he sent me his verdict: bad crank arm and bottom bracket. My mind  brought up memories of  an incident that happened on a New Year’s Day ride. My left crank arm fell off. Having to tighten it before each ride after that got old fast, so I got some blue Loc-Tite and smeared it into place. Once it cured, no more crank arm problems.

Don's crank set.

I was pleased about that, because I liked this setup. Guest blogger Don Blount had sent me the crank set after I’d posted about needing 172.5 mm cranks instead of the 175s that came with the bike. The shorter crank arms let me deliver more power to the pedals. But it turns out my fix was only temporary, and in the long run it did damage. The bike mech summed it up:

“The noise issue appears to have been started by a degrading crank.  The non-drive crank arm appears to have worked loose over time.  This damaged both the crank arm by wallowing out the splines and, because it allowed for play on the crank, ended up damaging the non-drive bearing on the bottom bracket.”

The only way to fix the problem, he said, was to replace both the crank and bottom bracket. Yech. But I had a solution, sitting right in the garage — the original crank set and bottom bracket that came with the bike.

The original.

He put them on, and I was rolling again the next day.

Because Christmas intervened, and we were out of town for five days, I haven’t ridden it much yet. I have gone out on some short rides with my wife, and really pushed hard today when we did Veloway laps. I will have to lower the seat a bit — maybe not the full 2.5 mm the new cranks have added to my pedal stroke, but enough to keep that twinge away from my knee — and futz with the saddle, because lowering it means I have to put it back a bit, too. Heck, I haven’t had the bike fitted for almost two years. Maybe it’s time to do it right and make an appointment to get it done right.

—–

Click to embiggen.

Christmas was a modest affair around our house. Pat set a low gift expense limit, so neither of us went overboard, but we both got what we wanted. I got some new wool socks, because I like the ones I have so much. But these are truly high-tech socks. They’re even sized for each foot. And they tell you which one, right on the toe. Makes me feel like being in kindergarten again, when we had red ribbons tied to our right shoe so we would be able to learn left from right.

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Categories // Accessories, Equipment, Maintenance Tags // clothing, cranksets, repair

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