9 Mechanical Skills Everyone Should Know | Essential MTB Maintenance Skills

[Music] as mountain bikers we should all have some kind of basic mechanical skill under our belt in order to look after our bikes now this doesn't mean the necessity of being able to strip down a suspension fork or anything advanced like that but it does mean you should know the more basic skills so when you can't get to a bike shop you can look after your bike yourself now this video has all of those major essential skills in there and of course there's going to be a few other tips in there along the way okay so first up is how to use an allen key properly also known as a hex range you might be wondering why i say using one properly because there's only one way to use them but it's very easy to select the wrong one it's very easy to slip and it's very easy to use once damaged without knowing so there's a few little things you need to know here so first up make sure you've got a decent selection of allen keys now this doesn't mean having to spend a fortune you could have a multi-tool like this one from park very useful does most of the bolts on all around the bike and also means you can take it with you if you want to the other option of course is to get some kind of free setup now these tend to come with bikes and components you buy great because they're free and they're going to be able to serve you for many years if you look after them however they do start to wear especially the cheaper ones and as they wear they can damage the heads of the allen key bolts all around your bike so you don't want to be doing that so great to use but just take care that they're in good condition and replace them as you need to next up would be a full set of workshop spec allen keys now these are very expensive for good reason they're made of extremely hard steel like s-grade steel which is for pro mechanics out there they have some hidden features you've got these little spinners so you can send longer bolts home and they've even got rifled sections on them so you can remove those rounded out bolts when you do encounter them however pro quality comes with a pro price tag so it might not suit you the last option would be a trail multi tool now this has just about everything under the sun on it in fact henry used one of these if not this actual one um to completely take his bike apart recently for a video that's going to be in the link underneath here just to show you what these are capable of they're amazing however they're not necessarily the best thing to use on a day-to-day basis because of the fact that some of the tools on them are quite small which means you've got more chance of slipping great when you're out on the trail to rescue a situation perhaps not quite as good on a daily basis although if you need to start somewhere there's a good place to go now the last thing to take into account is the torque settings of bolts now if you're not doing too much on a bike it's nothing to worry about but it's very easy to snap a bolt or damage a lightweight component if you over tighten it and worse if you under tighten something and at least something coming loose it could fail on you or it could be dangerous on the trail so if that sounds like a concern invest in some kind of torque wrench now it could just be bits for an existing ratchet spanner you have or it could be a dedicated bike one this one from parks very simple it's got adjustable torque setting it comes with bits in the handle and it does the job great although perhaps you want to save a bit more money and consider something like this one this is a topic one it's a ratchet tool it has all the stuff that you'd use out on the trail and it has different settings uh different torque bits here that you can use in conjunction with them a really good value piece of kit you can take it with you and you can use it at home every day as well so just consider that if that's something that bothers you or perhaps if you've got an expensive bike and you want to take care of those lightweight carbon parts now there's two last things you need to take into account one always take your time and make sure the allen key is properly inserted into the head if it's not in properly it can slip and the last one and the most important one is make sure you use the correct size sometimes especially with the smaller ones a 2 or 2.5 quite often you can confuse them and if you use the smaller one in a 2.5 you're going to end up rounding out the head the same can also happen if you have a huge selection of loose allen keys like this if you had say some imperial ones in there like a 360 you might reach for that by accident thinking it was a five millimeter and go to just a five millimeter bolt and you could end up rounding out the head so if you do have any random imperial ones in amongst your collection try and keep them to one side because mountain bikes are all about the metric next up is changing a tire mounted bikes all have tires on them and at some point you're going to get a puncture whether you're set up tubeless or you have a good old-fashioned inner tube in there you're going to need to know how to take this off because we still get punctures basically it's going to happen so you will need some kind of tyre levers don't use metal ones metal ones can damage the tyre they can damage the inner tube and more importantly they can damage the rim on your bike make sure you use nylon or plastic ones they often clip together like this so you don't lose them the best advice is to get three chances are you'll only ever need one sometimes you need a backup one and you're probably gonna lose one so get a third one for good measure of course you're gonna need some sort of pump a floor standing pump is gonna make things a lot easier for you in the long term however a hand pump is probably more useful because the fact you can use it at home and out on the trail so just take care of what you pick make sure you pick the right things now along with learning how to take a tire off and repairing a tire and all that sort of stuff you want to go the old fashioned route and learn how to repair an inner tube as well if you're not using tubeless you will have an inner tube on the inside now whilst you could just buy a new one make sure you've got no thorns on the inside of that tire casing and replace it it's not very good for the environment so you want to make sure you get the most use out of it as possible get yourself an old-fashioned feather edge patch kit and learn how to use them it's actually quite therapeutic next up is get to know your cockpit setup now you might just buy your bike from the bike shop they set out for you and you get many years of great use out of it but you won't be getting the most out of it unless you experiment with your setup we're talking about the thickness of your grips the way you roll them backwards and forwards the same with your bars are you comfortable do you think it's too low is it too high is it too far is it too near there's so many different variants with your cockpit and i do encourage everyone to experiment with things a little bit brake lever position the general rule of thumb is when you're seated you run the brake levers in line with your arms but that's not right for everyone i like my brake levers nearly horizontal at times other people like theirs nearly vertically down there's no right and there's no wrong but by experimenting with things not only will you find things more comfortable when your riding will develop you'll also start to learn about your cockpit you'll start to learn how your bars are mounted onto the bike you'll start to learn about how the headset bearings are compressed and before you know it you'll have learned how to take apart the front of your bike completely it's all quite simple it's just a series of allen keys which is why it's so important to make sure you know how to use those things right setting up the sag on your suspension now this is absolutely crucial and everyone can do this at home now many of us will have a mountain bike with some sort of suspension on it usually we'll at least have front suspension so you'll have some sort of suspension fork if the fork was on your bike when you got it and it's an air fork it will come with an air pump especially for it if you bought the fork aftermarket it will also come with a pump so either way you should have one if you don't get one they're essential and setting up your sag is very easy all you've got to do is set it up to your rider weight when you're on the bike now the guidelines are between 20 and 30 depending on the model of fork and depending on your preferences some like it's softer some like it harder now getting your sag set up correctly can't emphasize this enough you'll go different from your bike being quite good off-road to really inspiring your confidence and giving you the grip and support and comfort that you want from your suspension fork it makes a massive difference riding a fork that's set up correctly and honestly playing with them as well it's actually quite good fun so don't be put off with letting the air pressure out putting it back in again trying it harder trying it softer it's all experimentation and with these little portable pumps you can do this out on the trail as well so don't feel that you need to just set it up once and forget about it you might find by experimenting a bit more you find a setup that works better for you like i said earlier in the video note one up is right for everyone you've got to find what works for you there will be a guideline to start with and then experiment and find what is the best one next up is adjusting your gears now many people think there's a bit of a black art to this but i'll let you in on a secret it's actually dead easy all you need to do is have the correct tools good allen keys or a screwdriver you need a bit of patience and you need to just understand what all of the things do all derailleurs whether they're sram or shimano fundamentally work on the exact same principles now there's gonna be a video on mastering setting up your derailleur in the description underneath this one so click through on that and it'll tell you everything you need to do to service and set up your rear derailleur now i encourage everyone to learn how your derailleur works because the fact once you learn how it works you won't run into problems down the line and by doing this you'll understand what the limit screws do you'll understand how the tension in the cage works and how that affects other things on the bike now also you'll understand when things go wrong what they can possibly be being cable actuated if you ride in wet or muddy conditions quite often you'll find just a change of cable or a bit of lubricant inside the outer cable can remedy everything now setting up your derailleur is immensely satisfying and there's nothing better than clean shifting okay next up is learning how to set your bike up tubeless now this might not be first on your agenda it's definitely a skill to aspire to get to there are serious performance enhancements to be had from running a bike with a tubeless setup the first one of course is you're losing weight off the bit you're rotating if you can lower the rotating weight on the bike your bike is going to feel faster it's going to feel more agile it's going to be nicer to ride they are all performance enhancements the addition as well is you're removing those inner tubes that are already on your bike so you can keep them as spares you don't need to have spare inner tubes or spend more money on those two of those will probably do you quite a long time i honestly can't remember the last time i had a puncture with a tubeless setup the other advantage of course is if you do get small punctures often thorns and things like that the tubular singlet that you have will seal those small holes as you ride wave goodbye to the puncture setting up your tires tubeless is a bit of a skill and it does require a bit of a method to follow and accordingly because you can make mistakes it's something that people stay away from but honestly i made a video it's going to be in the description underneath this it's dead simple and i do it live on the video really really is that simple so check it out and put that on your list of things to do it's a great upgrade and it's a great skill to learn as well okay next up is installing a dropper post on your mountain bike now many new bikes do come with them now so if you've already got one on your bike at some point you're gonna need to take it out in order to maintain it or perhaps change the cable on it so you're still gonna need to know how to do this and if you haven't got one yet i'm sure it might be on your list of things that you want to aspire to buy further down the line because they are one of the biggest performance enhancements you can put on any mountain bike now they all fit slightly differently so it really is a skill to learn now the cable operated ones are a bit different to the hydraulic ones but the thing you will need to learn is mastering your cable routing which on many bikes tends to be internal and that in itself comes with its own set of challenges but by doing that you're going to learn a lot about your bike now take your time when you install a dropper post follow the manufacturer's instructions because they all slightly are different some have the nipple at the lever end some have them at the seat post end some are hydraulic they will accordingly be slightly different although the principles fundamentally are the same now learning how to maintain the drop post as well that is also something that goes with the turf if you've got a suspension fork it's quite likely that you'll have looked at the similar sort of maintenance things we're talking about removing the seals putting some oil behind them again actually quite simple but definitely something you should aspire to be able to do there's going to be a link to how to install one of those in the description underneath good luck with that the next up is learning how to bleed your brakes now you might want to rely on your bike shop for this sure but sod's law the time you're going to need to bleed your brakes that one time will be five minutes before you go riding just you'll discover that your levers are pulling to the bars that's no good if it's a sunday and you can't get to a bike shop so learning to do yourself really is an essential skill and it isn't one that you should be afraid of because actually it's quite simple it just requires patience and a lot of it so get yourself some kind of bleed kit it's going to be compatible for your bike this one is for mineral oil by a shimano system or a magura system but you can get different ones with different fittings to suit dot systems like the avid or the sram systems on the market and accordingly you're going to need the correct oil they're not interchangeable you can't use mineral oil in a dot system and vice versa that is a dot fluid i cannot use that in a stationary minor break so i need to use shimano mineral fluid the dot fluids you can use that use round brakes for example all in hope breaks make sure you get this right and actually it's really satisfying also bleeding your brakes i do think it's something you should do at least annually just to make sure there's clean fluid in there make sure there's no air in there you didn't realize and to make sure that everything is working as well as it possibly should be also in doing that you're going to get much better at it much faster at it and you're going to find little cool shortcuts one great shortcut is if you've got air bubbles and then you're struggling to get them to the actual levers a good way to do it is to store your bike up on this back wheel overnight and you can even do this with the levers sent so they're actually horizontally so that would be vertically if your bike is upright um and with the top cylinders open so actually the air bubbles can rise out by themselves so there's loads of cool tips you can pick up just by experimenting think of it as bleeding a radiator at home it is that simple you just have to know how to do it there's going to be links to shimano video and a sram video in the description underneath there follow those and you should be able to do that yourself again don't be afraid of it but make sure that you do invest in the correct bleed kit and the correct fluid to suit your brakes now finally i would say is building a custom bike or building a frame up from components now there honestly is nothing more satisfying in the world of mountain biking or even road biking as building your own project bike is even better than having a complete bike turning up you have all of the parts there and you slowly and methodically put it all together using all of those skills that you've developed over your years of riding it really is something great to aspire to do and a good way to do that is to start upgrading your bike bit by bit over time maybe you damage your rear derailleur in a crash and you'll need to replace it now you'll learn in replacing derailleur you'll need to index your gears you'll also need to change the cable on the derailleur and you'll need to split a chain so straight away there's three major jobs done that go along to building a bike up now just think every time you replace a part on your bike you're learning a new skill if you choose to do it yourself and before long you'll be able to build a bike like this from the ground up honestly it's so much fun to do and i can't encourage you all to do it um enough it really is one of the coolest things you can do with your home bike skills and actually because mountbox are largely put together with allen keys you can do most of it yourself again i'm going to put that video that henry made using just a trail multi tool in the description underneath this it will show you how much you can do with that so if you think with a multi-tool and a few other tools you can pretty much build your own bike from scratch now as i mentioned all the videos are in the descriptions underneath to go with every part of this how to bleed your brakes how to set your tires up tubeless all of that sort of stuff and i urge you if you can't do those skills or even if your skills are a bit rusty check them out i promise you at least be a few tips in each of the videos that will help you on your way we want to help you because riding bikes and looking after bikes is cool hopefully you enjoyed the video thanks for hanging around see you later guys

Channel: GMBN Tech

Views: 554,187

Keywords: allen keys, multi tool, tyre, tubeless tyre, tube repair, pump, inner tube, cockpit, suspension, gear adjust, adjust gears, rear mech, dropper post, bleed brakes, gmbn tech, mtb tech, bike tech, mountain bike, Bicycle (Product Category), MTB, bicycle, gmbntech, GMBN, Global Mountain Bike Network, mountain biking, Downhill, XC, Cross Country, Enduro, MTB skills, bike skills, mountain bike skills, bike, bike riding, cycling, gmvn, andrew dodd, doddy, कॅ, scany15, ର, 1k, 1a, ኽ, 1d, 1t, ው, Ꮖ, ፕ20

Id: IAzTtwB3eN0

Length: 15min 45sec (945 seconds)

Published: Sat May 23 2020