Look out for these things when working on your mountain bike!

I've been reflecting on my safety track  record here at Berm Peak sometimes I get   a bad rap for Workshop safety practices and  I don't think it's deserved honestly I still   have all my fingers nobody's ever had to go  directly from this Workshop to a hospital   and there's just people that are way worse so  maybe I'm not the right person to be giving   you safety advice in the shop but I can show  you a whole bunch of different ways that you   can get hurt working on your mountain bike and  you can consider not doing those things [Music]   let's start with low hanging fruit your disc brake  rotors can mess up your hands in so many different   ways and in fact I try to make a ballistic like  gelatin hand to demonstrate some of these things didn't work out and so that's why  I'm using a hot dog today [Music]   so obviously you spin your wheel and  you stick your finger in here [Music]   it's not good maybe that will what happened  to your finger but it depends on how fast the   wheel is spinning this is obviously a concern you  might say well this is simple to avoid just don't   put your finger in the rotor when the wheel is  spinning but that's not how it happens nobody's   just losing control and sticking their finger  in their rotor the way that I've gotten into   trouble is truing a rotor while it's on the  bike sometimes your rotor hits into something   it's a little bent out of shape and so you're  spinning it back and forth and your fingers   are near it and don't put your fingers near  it but this can also happen if you're doing   kind of a manual adjustment on the position of  your caliper you're spinning the wheel back and   forth and moving the caliper it's really easy  to get just the tip of your finger over here   and these brake rotors are like the safest ones  you're ever going to see you have this big fat   spline over here a rotor like this is sharp  at every single point on it it's going to do   way more damage to you at barely any speed I've  lost like little chunks off the tip of my finger   in the early days I would just caution you to  really keep your fingers far from the disc rotor so maybe you have a bolt-on rotor with  t25s they're very shallow and if you're   not careful or you're not using the best  tool the wrench tends to be able to slip   out of them and you can graze your knuckle on  the edge of your disc rotor and whether you   graze the spline in the middle or the rotor  on the outside it's very very sharp and if   your knuckle hits it you can be bleeding all  over the place and you're going to have a bad   time and so just choose the right tool when  you're doing this and so usually you'll see   me using one of these three-way tools to work  on rotors because it positions your hand really   far away from it makes it almost impossible  for you to hurt your hand using one of these   ow so especially if you're used to just riding  your bike you would never regard your bike frame   as dangerous but let's say you're setting the sag  in your rear shock I've seen people kind of hold   the bike like this because they just put it on  the ground and then hop on to it now with certain   linkage you wouldn't have to worry about anything  but as the bike compresses this shock is moving up   and it can totally crush your knuckles right here  when it's really going to catch you by surprise   is when your shock is out and you're just handling  your bike frame so if you're like me from time to   time you do a full rebuild on your full suspension  bike you break it down you clean all the parts you   put it back together runs like new but when the  shock is out oh man are there ways you can crush   your fingers [Music] I've had my hand resting on  the bike in a weird position when I've actually   pulled the shock and the weight of the rear  wheel pulls the linkage down and just massacred   my fingers now when you take a bike frame off of  the stand it gets way more dangerous because now   you can put it in any position so I have my hand  like this and everything seems Dandy if I turn   the bike upside down because I'm cleaning it now  this thing's going to come down and crush my hand   and this is one of those things that you really  don't think about until your hands being crushed so here I have my dirt jump bike now I don't  ride this as much as my full suspension bikes   and so when I'm working on it sometimes I  forget that it's different like for example   there's no slack on the chain whatsoever  it's always tight and so if you have your   finger here while you're back pedaling or  even close to it there's no spring over   there to save you bad things are gonna happen at  what point do we call in Oscar to help clean up so when I was a kid I didn't have a bike this  nice but I did have a bike and I did work on   it just like this upside down you can cycle  the drivetrain you can get to everything good   way to work on your bike and because I was a  bmxer I was always changing out pedals which   were insanely tight now here you can see  this chain is on the chainring over here   if you are working on pedals I would highly  recommend you leave the chain on because here   if my hand hits it it actually doesn't hurt at  all now what happens if we take the chain off   now this is totally exposed if your hand hits into  it you're gonna get really really hurt so you have   these really tight pedals that you put on with  no grease and you're just putting all your might   down on the pedal wrench finally it cracks loose  and what happens your hand goes straight into the   chainring now there are positions you can put  the wrench in that are much safer than that   but if you put the chain on it's just an extra  layer of protection for when things don't go well are you noticing a pattern here [Music] fingies  and hands so you guys know I take pride in my   collection of multi-color cable crimps I put  these on every bike partially because it keeps   the cable from getting frayed and it's safer  when your cable is frayed like this you have   all these little guys sticking out just getting  ready to poke you and if you think that's a long   shot well then one day you're gonna get poked  with it and you're gonna see why it's important crimps are not only attractive but they're safe  [Music] so this next one gets talked about all   the time before you work on an air fork or an  air shock you should probably let the air out   of it and public service announcement you should  let the air out with a suspension pump not with   a pick and that part actually has nothing to do  with safety so of course this is a Schrader valve   right here you can just depress it and it's going  to let all the air out but the reason you should   let the air out with a shock pump is that if you  just press the valve down it doesn't really fast   it could suck some grease into a port probably  going to be fine but yeah if you want to play   it safe and that's what this video is about use  a shock pump but I think the most important point   is let the air out because I'm about to show you  what happens if you don't man this is so wrong oh nothing happened so truth be told I've never blown  the cap off of a fork and so I didn't know that it   gently lets the air out before it ever gets to  that point now maybe I was lucky but it makes   sense you get up to the last few threads this  little rubber ring isn't there air starts going   and you kind of notice you'd really have to be  taking it off fast I think to get hit in the face   with one of these but back in the day when these  were plastic you'll have a big drop hit the ground   and it would just fly up in the air and hit you  in the face I guess take your fork and shock apart   with it totally inflated it  doesn't matter don't do that those of you who have been watching for a  while know that I blew a tubeless tire off   the bead right here in the shop while inflating  it not only did my entire face get covered with   sealant and it got all over the ceiling but my  hand was on the tire and it got hurt so bad I   couldn't ride for like a week after that it  really hurt and we did a demonstration video   just showing what it's like when you blow a tire  off the bead and so when you're seating tubeless   tires just never ever go above 40 PSI it's just  not worth it I was not keeping an eye on the   gauge that day but there are other honorable  mentions we don't have any e-bikes here today   but you should really take the battery out  of those things when you're working on them   depending on what type of e-bike you're working  on you could just touch the crank and the entire   drivetrain is going to start spinning and so you  should really disable the battery there are other   safety precautions in the shop like wearing  gloves now as you can see by this box I do use   loves but sometimes I don't when I should  especially when working with dot five brake   fluid are you gonna die from touching it no but it  can irritate your skin if you have an open cut or   something it's probably not good for it so yeah we  could crank up the safety another few notches here   if we really wanted to but the fact that I have  a little bit of experience being unsafe means I   can share these things with you now we left out  a lot of things today but these are precautions   that I would take based on my own experience  I want to hear from you guys what's the worst   you've ever gotten hurt working on your bike or  what's a precaution that you should take I hope   you guys had fun today talking about safety  in the workshop I know those hot dogs could   have fed starving children but those particular  hot dogs I don't even think Starving Children   would eat and so I hope at least some of you  learned something today and if not I hope   you are at least entertained thanks for riding  with me today and I'll see you next time [Music] thank you

Channel: Berm Peak Express

Views: 372,264

Keywords: do it yourself, diy, tools, mountain biking, cycling, outdoors, bike repair, workshop, mtb repair, mtb tips

Id: tEDoqiTIj6g

Length: 10min 30sec (630 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 21 2023