Cast Your Vote for the Best Bike Shop

The Evening Magazine folks are doing their annual Best of Western Washington Poll and they have a Bike Shop category. As of 9/22/09 Bike Works is ranked number 4, which is amazing since we are tiny. But if you like us, please go and vote for us!

You can see the current standings and vote at: http://tinyurl.com/luu6jl

Thanks,

The Bike Works Crew

Morgan Hauls

Morgan stopped by the shop today with a broken shift cable. She was hauling a bit of stuff, so rather than bring her rig into the shop, I wound up replacing the cable out where she'd parked.

Two Wheels To Tibet

The nicest people stop by Bike Works. Natashka Kasselis and her pal Tim stopped by on their way from Bellingham to San Francisco. But Natashka is just getting warmed up. She's cycling from Paris to Tibet to raise funds for the repair of a Tibetan refugee nunnery. You can follow the journey at www.twowheelstotibet.com.

Kim's Special Bike

The email from my friend Mark was titled "Kim needs a special bike". Mark described his neighbor, Kim, who had an older Peugeot that needed some work. Mark went on to write:

Here's the rub, Kim is missing several fingers and parts of most of her fingers. Hand brakes are very difficult for her right hand and pretty much impossible with her left hand (no thumb = no leverage).

After meeting with Kim and determining that she really liked her somewhat too big Peugeot and that she'd really like to be able to do some handy things like shifting and stopping, we set to work. One of the many great things about Bike Works is that we have some unique bits in our collection of recycled parts.

We replaced Kim's rusty steel-rimmed wheels with some used wheels with alloy rims. The replacement rear wheel has a three-speed hub with a coaster brake that Kim can work with her feet. Shifting takes place via an easily-nudged trigger shifter. Swept-back bars put Kim in a more comfortable position. For added safety, a single dual-cable brake lever works both caliper brakes. By mounting the lever facing Kim, she can engage the lever by pushing with the palm of her hand instead of pulling with her fingers.

This was a super fun project to work on and Kim is thrilled with her customized bike.

Fender Options for Racing Bikes

Many modern racing bikes suffer from what we call "California Bike Syndrome", they were designed with the thought they would only be ridden on sunny days and have no clearances or provisions for fenders. While that might be fine in drier climates, in the Pacific Northwest fenders come in very handy for keeping road spray off the bike, the rider and the rider's companions. Commercial solutions, like the Race Blade fenders pictured below avoid the tight areas around the brakes and mount to the bike via rubber bands. They go on and off quickly, but don't extend down as far as full fenders.

At Bike Works, we've used corrugated plastic with success to extend the coverage of Race Blades. Coroplast can also be used to make an entire set of fenders, as Matt Newlin shows in the slide show below:




A set of standard fenders can sometimes be made to work on a bike with close tolerances by crafting some brackets from old rack stays to sneak under or over the brake bridges. The fenders are then cut and bolted to the metal stays. The fender struts are attached to the bike with plastic-coated metal p-clamps. Nylon zip-ties also come in very handy for installing various fender bits.






With a bit of ingenuity and adaptation, almost any bike can be fitted with fenders. At Bike Works we charge based on the complexity of the install with most install charges being around $25.

Bike Rims Wear Out

The other day a customer came into the shop saying his front brake kept rubbing on his front rim and he couldn't figure out why. Upon examination, we saw his rim was dangerously worn, worn to the point the rim had deformed. What had been a straight, vertical braking surface was now bent and bowed out. Since this fellow needed to get back on the road quickly, we outfitted him with a replacement wheel rather than rebuild his wheel with a new rim. This guy was lucky, thin rims can blow out while riding, and that can be more exciting than most folks prefer.

Cyclists in drier climates, or those who only ride on dry days may never wear through a rim, but here in the Seattle area where intrepid commuters, randonneurs and other high mileage folks ride through the wet and the crud, bicyclists can and do wear through rims.

The prudent thing to do is pay attention. A handy dental caliper like the one pictured below will tell you if your rim is dangerously thin (less than 1 mm) but most folks don't have one of these in their tool kit.


Visual examination of the outside of the rim can give you some indications of rim-thinning. Some rims have wear indicators but even if your rims lack this feature, you can look for signs of deep wear on the braking surface. A thin rim also often deforms a bit and you'll feel this as a rider via a pulsing when you apply the brakes.

Britain's CTC has published some letters discussing thin rims and other wheel issues here:

http://www.ctc.org.uk/DesktopDefault.aspx?TabID=3827

and one method they recommend is over-inflating your tires (or tyres as they say over there) for test purposes. If your rim doesn't blow out with the over-pressure tyre, you're OK. If it does, I guess the theory is that it's better to find that out in the shop instead of on the road.

You wouldn't think that soft rubber brake pads could wear through metal rims, but the real culprit isn't rubber, it's road grit. Some commuters and cyclo-crosser riders use wheels with disk brakes to avoid this problem altogether but there are a few things you can do to preserve the life of your rims.

First off, try to keep your bike clean. Don't let the grit build up on your brake pads and rims.

Second, some brake pads do a better job in wet conditions. Sheldon Brown and lots of other smart riders have found Kool-Stop salmon pads pick up less grit and stop better in the wet than anything else on the market. We carry a wide range of Kool-Stop salmon pads at Bike Works.



Finally, be aware of your rims and your brake pads. Don't let worn rims catch you by surprise.

We've got bins of used bike parts

A major focus at Bike Works is teaching kids bike repair but our pool of used parts also serves the bike shop and our customers. We're able to keep old bikes going by maintaining a large stock of used parts. The photos below show the classroom space, concentrating on the various storage bins of parts.