grease

When you want to overhaul your threaded headset, remove the handlebar stem and use a wrench for the locknut. Remove the spacers and the top race. Check the races for pitting. Remove fork and bearings. The bearings are normally in casings. Check these for pitting too (though because they are cheap, you could just as well buy new ones). Clean everything. 

Once you've checked what is still usable (hopefully everything), turn the fork over and start with the bottom first. Put in grease, your bearings and then the fork. Secure the fork to the frame and flip the bike over, right side up.

Repeat with the top. Grease everything: locknut, bearings, anything that has a thread. Put your spacers on, followed by the locknut. Wipe off any excess grease that may still be on the bike.

Wrench the locknut tight and then test out your fork. If it doesn't turn smoothly, you'll have to see where you went wrong with previous steps.

A headset is basically the piece that holds the fork to the frame of a bike, thereby allowing for steering. A sealed bearing headset normally has a plastic or rubber gasket to protect the insides from dirt.

There are a lot of special tools you can use for the installation. If you don’t want to shell out a grip of change for these tools, which may be a little out of the reach of your wallet, there are cheaper alternatives (a wooden block and a hammer, for instance). Worst comes to worst, you can always ask your local mechanic or read some bike books for tool cheats.

Park Tools makes these:

Fork crown facing tool

Headset facing tool

Headset press

Digital caliper

Hammer

Grease

A headset is basically the piece that holds the fork to the frame of a bike, thereby allowing for steering. A sealed bearing headset normally has a plastic or rubber gasket to protect the insides from dirt.

There are a lot of special tools you can use for the installation. If you don’t want to shell out a grip of change for these tools, which may be a little out of the reach of your wallet, there are cheaper alternatives (a wooden block and a hammer, for instance). Worst comes to worst, you can always ask your local mechanic or read some bike books for tool cheats.

Park Tools makes these:

Fork crown facing tool

Headset facing tool

Headset press

Digital caliper

Hammer

Grease

A headset is basically the piece that holds the fork to the frame of a bike, thereby allowing for steering. A sealed bearing headset normally has a plastic or rubber gasket to protect the insides from dirt.

There are a lot of special tools you can use for the installation. If you don’t want to shell out a grip of change for these tools, which may be a little out of the reach of your wallet, there are cheaper alternatives (a wooden block and a hammer, for instance). Worst comes to worst, you can always ask your local mechanic or read some bike books for tool cheats.

Park Tools makes these:

1. Fork crown facing tool
2. Headtube facing tool
3. Headset press
4. Digital caliper
5. Hammer
6. Grease

Stringing brake cables is pretty straightforward.

You’ll need:

1. Allen wrench
2. Cable cutters
3. Brake housing
4. Brake cable
5. Ferrule
6. Cable grease

Measure off your housing. Make sure there is enough slack to allow for cable and brake movement. Start the insertion of the cable from the levers and work your way back. Make sure you’ve got the correct end fitting for your type of brakes. If the cables are universal, you’ll have both fittings, one on either end. Once you’ve figured out which you need, clip off the one you don’t need.

You can use a little cable grease so that the cable threads easier. Apply the correct length of housing as you go, putting on your ferrules. Don’t forget to leave a bit of give in the sections where there is a bit of a bend, to allow for movement of the handlebars or the calipers.

How To Adjust a Mountain Bike Front Derailleur

Tools you will need:

allen key

lube - should lube pivot points while adjusting

Screwdriver

 

When Paul Vivie invented the derailleur system and gave us the francophone spelling in 1928, he no doubt realized that having a derailleur in the front as well as the rear would allow allow him to nearly double the number of gearing combinations his system delivered.

It also held the potential to increase frustration by an order of magnitude. The grinding!

Watching these YouTube videos, I am pleasantly surprised when someone can make a bike tutorial funny. Why I was pissing myself laughing at this particular video had to do probably with the deadpan tone of the narrator’s voice, in a Canadian accent, making little puns. It was pretty endearing.

How often you overhaul bike hubs depends, as always, on how you ride. If you’re off-roading it, you’ll probably want to do that once a year. Roadies will probably need to be doing it every other year. In both cases, if you go underwater (riding through huge puddles/lakes/swimming pool), get an overhaul as soon as you can. Things will rust and your ride will be crap.

You will need:

Cone wrench

Regular wrench

A magnet

Screwdriver

Grease (preferably not of the vegetable-based variety)

Degreaser

It is recommendable that you put in new bearings, seeing as that you’re already in there anyway. They are cheap and it’s better to err on the side of caution than not.

One of the ways you can keep your bike riding smoothly is by giving it a good cleaning, both inside and out. Overhauling a bottom bracket will most likely not be in your weekly cleaning regimen and depending on how you ride, you might not even have to really look at it too much. But it is a good thing to know how to do when the time comes.

For this task, you will need several things:

1. Crank puller
2. 17 mm open end wrench
3. Adjustable wrench
4. Bottom bracket wrench
5. Pin Spanner
6. Hooked lockring wrench
7. 36 mm wrench
8. Solvent 
9. Grease

Keep rags on hand so that you can keep your hands and your bike clean. Small trays or containers are also handy when you take out the parts, and especially the ball bearings, so that you won’t lose them. And buying ball bearings can be a pain in the ass.

Tutorial on how to install bike pedals.  Pedals will usually have left or right hand markings on them, either on the body of the pedal or on the end of the spindles. 

Starting with right pedal, first make sure you grease the spindle and clean the inside of the crank arm threads.  As you install it pedal backward and hold the pedals straight, and make sure the threads engage straight.  The pedal should thread on smoothly, if it is not, stop immediately and try again.  You do not want to cross thread the pedal.  Once it snug, give it one more oomf.  And don't say um so much.

The biggest thing to remember about installing pedals is that the left pedal is lefty tighty instead of the usual righty tighty we are trained to remember. Once you get the pedal started you can just hold the wrench onto it and rotate the pedals backward to make it quick.

Always a good idea to have a good tube of grease around. Grease should be applied to things like hub bearings, headset bearings, bottom bracket bearings and should be applied to threaded surfaces, such as pedals and thread on hubs.