Learning Is Fun – With UBC’s Bike Kitchen, Vancouver

Check out this awesome picture we found online. By: AAron Kuehn- aairline.info 

Ok, so we decided that cycling 2,000 miles and knowing nothing about bike mechanics is probably a bad idea so it was time to get smart and go back to school.

Of course, you can learn anything you want online these days, but the problem is there is so much information that it gets overwhelming, plus a lot of it is contradictory so who knows who to trust? One good resource I did find that I think is worth mentioning is this Guy Sheldon Brown, he seems to know everything about everything, check out his page here.

Another useful tool has been this Bike Repair App which covers a lot of the basics and is very easy to understand.

I still felt unsure and unconfident about a fair few things though so we decided that some practical hands on experience was what was needed and signed up for an afternoon course on bike mechanics at UBC’s BikeKitchen (a not-for profit bike coop which teaches people how to repair and maintain their bikes and also does a great line in second hand bikes).

The course was about five hours long and included all the basics of bike mechanics including;

-          how to clean and replace bearings

-          how to true wheels

-          how to mend a flat tire

-          stem adjustments

-          brake adjustments and installation

-          shifter adjustments

-          bottom bracket adjustment

And there was time at the end to work on our own bikes under supervision and ask questions.

Our instructor, Lucas, was a great teacher very knowledgeable and adept at explaining things in a way that we could all understand.

Obviously in five hours you’re not going to learn everything, but I think the class was a great introduction to bike mechanics and I now feel much more confident to be able to diagnose (and hopefully fix) certain problems that we may encounter.

I would definitely recommend this course to anyone who is interested in learning how to tune up and maintain their own bike and at $50 it was a bargain!

Dave

We will be cycling the Pacific Coast from Vancouver to Tijuana over six weeks starting in August 2012 to raise money for Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research. Please show your support by sponsoring us here, leaving a comment below and sharing our blog.