bike mechanic school: a better day

(This is the third of four posts: you can find the first here, the second here, the fourth here.)

Wednesday of week two at the bike school. We studied mountain bike suspension systems, and I learned a lot of the theory of how the various fork systems work, and about setup of a new bike for a rider. (I also learned I don't want to do a lot of work on these; much of the service is proprietary, other service requires tools I don't want to have to get. And there's waste oil to have to deal with... And a number of these services are supposed to be performed every 40-100 hours of riding. If a rider puts in ten hours on a weekend - not impossible for an enthusiastic rider - that's service as often as every four weeks. Are all those guys at Blackwells Mills/Six Mile Run doing that?)

We also did some frame preparation work. The heat required for assembling metal frames (which are brazed or welded together) causes inescapable deformation in the frameset, and modern components (especially) require near-perfect alignment to work properly and have a reasonable lifespan. We learned about chasing threads, and facing bearing surfaces. It's not hard work, but it requires thousands of dollars worth of tools. I suspect older, more-established shops will have the setups (especially those that cater to elite riders), and I'll probably refer the work to them. But it was fun to do, and good to have the experience and know what I'm looking at.

Because the blog presents these posts in reverse chronological order, my first two posts appear after this one in the blog, so I figured I'd put up a few establishment pics so you know what the place looks like and what we're doing. Below, one of the workstations:

Commonly-used tools and fluids are on the board; other tools are in the drawers at the left. Instructors come around daily to check that the tools are all in place and present. The practice teaches having an organized workspace, and I like it; I could easily do with improvement in my organization.

Each station has a road bike to work on:

... as well as a mountain bike and a gravel bike.

The school makes a point that these bikes are not available to ride. I initially thought it was just about not wanting to risk losing the bike, but because these bikes are constantly being worked on, many of the parts are not torqued to specification (because so much opening-and-reattaching would weaken threaded surfaces), and there are other modifications that make them great for the classroom, but hazardous on the road.

The school has also built up some specialty assemblies, which are kept at each workstation:

This one has a lot going on: in addition to a threaded 1" stem (which was common on the bikes I grew up with - that's the one with the adjustable handlebar height, and it's still common on less-expensive bikes), it's also got a cable-actuated disk brake on one side, and a linear-pull "vee" brake on the other.

On the left of this assembly, there's a two-piece crankset in a press-fit BB30 bottom bracket; on the right, a three-piece crankset with a loose-ball threaded bottom bracket. I am ridiculously proud of having been able to overhaul both.

(If you read the blog post I posted earlier [it's below if you're reading from the top of the blog], you know I had an attack of vertigo in class. It hasn't recurred. I'm taking extra care of myself, just in case.)