handlebars

Grips on your bike are pretty important. You need something soft and comfy to hold on to when you come flying off of a hill or some traction when you’re busting some seriously hardcore bike moves.

If you are planning on reusing your grips, however, most of mechanics don’t really have a solution other than cutting them off with a razor or scissors. I did find one tutorial on inflating them off with a bike pump so I’ll include that, just in case. If that doesn’t work, lift off the edge of the grip with a thin screwdriver and drop alcohol in between the stem and the grip. Enough alcohol should get the grip to slide.

Installing them is pretty straightforward. Get a bit of sprayable rubbing alcohol or hairspray and spray the inside of the grip. You want to make sure that that handlebars are clean of residue before you proceed so give it a good cleaning with some solvent or alcohol. Then slide the grips on.

Riding with ill-placed handlebar tape sucks. To make sure you don't have unsightly gaps and do it properly, you need a couple of things:

1. Handlebar tape
2. Scissors
3. Finishing tape (electrical tape works well)
4. Handlebar end caps (they usually come with your tape)

Make sure you start the wrap from the bottom of the handlebar and work your way up. Leave a little overlap off the edge of the bar when you start so that you can tuck it in with the caps after you finish. As you work your way up, overlap in the ballpark of 1/4 of an inch. Overlap too much and you won't have enough tape when you get to the end. Overlap too little and you'll have huge gaps showing. 

This is an early episode where Jim goes through parts of the bicycle.  Jim starts with the front wheel, rim, tire, tube, spokes and hub, then moves on to the fork and brake and brake calipers. 

Next he checks out the handlebars, brake levers, and bar tape.  On to the stem, and headset which transitions into the frame, which consists of the headtube, top tube, down tube, seat tube, chain stay and seat stay. 

Which brings us to the seatpost and saddle.  Moving on to the drivetrain made up of the crank, chain, cassette, rear derailleur and front derailleur.  What allows the crank to turn is the bottom bracket and that's pretty much what we're working with.  See you on the road, bitches!

Joe's much less suave, and much more annoying rendition of "Part's of a Bicycle":

Handle bars are awesome, they allow you to control your bike and give girls rides on them. The also make a hell of a mustache.  Plus there was this great song about handle bars.

1. Find a girl on the streets, preferably a little tipsy, but in the sweet spot where she's not so tipsy that she will fall off the handlebars in mid ride (If you are bicycling girl looking to pick up a guy hit me up, I'm always available for women on bikes.)