Risk-Free Bike Maintenance

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By David Cohen, Maryland National Capital Park Police Reserve Unit

Have you ever wanted to make adjustments or repairs to your bike, but are afraid of screwing up something? Perhaps you even went through the IPMBA Maintenance Officer Course, but the thought of making a mistake on your departmental ride or your personal bike is preventing you from diving in. What if you had the opportunity to work on a bike and gain experience in a risk-free environment? Would you do it? Or, are you already an experienced “wrench” who just likes to tinker?

If you answered “Yes” to any of these questions, you are probably a good candidate to try what I call “Risk Free Bike Maintenance”. Just like medical school students practice their craft on cadavers, the best way to learn how to work on a bike is to tinker. And the best bike for tinkering is one that has no negative consequence if you break it. Hence the “cadaver bike.”

Before you dive into this, there are two items which make working on a cadaver bike much easier. The first is a repair stand. I prefer the type that grabs one of the frame tubes to other types. The second is Park Tools’ Big Blue Book of Bike Repair. This is the bike repair bible; it walks you through every repair and adjustment step-by-step. Once you have your work stand and Big Blue Book, you are ready to find your “victim.”

There are plenty of sources to obtain a cadaver bike. Most departments have plenty of bicycles in varying states of repair as Abandoned Property. After being held for a certain amount of time, the bikes are released, often to a recycler who melts them down. If it is possible to obtain one of these bikes without jumping through too many hoops, that would be ideal. That is how I procured the Giant Lafree Electric Bike that was featured in IPMBA’s Spring 2014 Newsletter (“Electric Bikes – Hype or Hope?”). However, some departments will not release these bikes, even if they are in like-new condition, because of the liability issues. Check your department policy.

Yard sales are another good source for cadaver bikes. Decent bikes can often be had for $25 or less. Those which have spent their lives in a garage would be preferable to those that were stored outside or in a car port. If you can see rust spots larger than a dime on the bicycle, it’s probably better to take a pass on it, unless you have no desire to put the bike back on the road and only want to use it as a cadaver.

Finally, I’ve discovered that when you are known as “the bike guy”, bikes have a way of finding you. People I know will come up to me and say “I have an old bike in my garage. I don’t want to throw it away. Is there someone you know who could take care of it?” Much to my wife’s chagrin, this has been my most successful method of obtaining bikes, as I try to explain to her how they simply followed me home.

Generally, I try to stick with the known brands: 1960s – 1980s-era Schwinns in particular tend to be fairly abundant and are typically well-designed and constructed. While Huffy bicycles from this era tend to be the recipients of scorn and ridicule, they are also well-designed bikes. Huffys tend to suffer because of their low spec componentry and assembly by department store staff instead of qualified bike mechanics. Off-brands or knock-offs tend to be poorly designed and constructed without maintenance needs in mind and can turn even the best of intentions into a pursuit of frustration.

Once you get your cadaver bike home, the first thing to do is clean it up. Many bikes are coated with years of grime. I recommend Formula 409. Once it is clean, it is time to assess its overall condition. If the bike that has been idle for an extended period of time, you can count on having to replace all cables, cable housings, brake pads, tubes and tires. Some bikes have saddles that are cracked or torn.

After you have discovered the overall condition, the fun can begin. Tear the bike down to the frame. Label the parts and subassemblies. I put things like brake assemblies and headset assemblies into freezer bags and label them. I also label the cable housings with tape and use them as patterns for the new housings. As you go along, you may find the need to order specialized bike tools.

These tools can usually be found on eBay for a fairly reasonable price and help bolster your home bike tool kit. At each step – take pictures! This will give you a reference for what everything looked like before you took it apart. I have discovered that my memory isn’t quite as good as I thought, so pictures have proven an invaluable asset. The Park Blue Book is a great reference for disassembling parts of the bike that may be unfamiliar. And, of course, the internet has literally hundreds of bike repair resources from YouTube to the late Sheldon Brown’s website.

Now that the bike has been stripped down to the frame, it is time to put everything back together again. In many repair books there is a simple blurb, “Reassembly is reverse of disassembly.”, and that generally works for bicycles as well. Each piece should be cleaned and reconditioned (if not replaced) before reassembly. Some more heavily worn components may even need repainting.

The one area that I would not venture without professional assistance is tearing down and rebuilding the wheels. Wheel building is definitely an art, and it is helpful to have someone show you step-by-step rather than try it yourself.

So now that you’ve put your cadaver bike back together, what are you going to do with it? There are plenty of options. You can tear it back down and start all over again for additional practice. You can keep it and ride it, or sell it on eBay or Craigslist. You can donate it to a bike distribution charity such as Bikes for the World, or to your department’s Christmas Gift program for underprivileged children. Below are two case studies of cadaver bikes that have passed through my garage.

Case Study #1 – Mongoose BMX Bike

For those of us who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, “Mongoose” is synonymous with BMX bicycles. Mongoose remained a well-respected brand well into the 1990s when it, like Schwinn, lost its market dominance and became a box store staple.

A coworker at my day job was clearing her garage. Knowing I was a “bike person”, she asked if I wanted a BMX bike or knew anyone that wanted one. Her son rode the bike a few times and it was still in pretty good shape. I said, “Sure, I’ll take a look at it.” So one evening on the way home from work, I stopped by and picked up the bike.

It was a Mongoose BMX bike from the early- to mid-90s, before Mongoose became a box store staple. Having grown up right at the outset of the BMX craze, I was well familiar with the Mongoose name. The bike had spent most of its life in the garage and appeared to have suffered only from benign neglect. There were some small rust areas on the seat stays and the chain was fairly stiff and off the sprockets.

After bringing the bike home, I started to tear it down. As the tear down progressed, I discovered the bike truly was in superior condition. All parts showed little sign of wear. I’ve had to replace the tubes and tires on almost every bike I’ve restored, but in this case, the tires still had the little rubber tags that signify new tires. All this bike needed was cleaning and lubrication.

I tackled the rust spots on the frame, using a wire brush attached to a drill, followed by a coat of chrome polish, and then a coat of wax. For the aluminum wheels, I found that 1500 grit sandpaper worked best to clear off the layer of oxidation. The wheels and hubs were in good enough shape that they did not require a tear down and overhaul.

Once the chain was degreased, cleaned and freshly lubed, it looked as good as new and worked smoothly. I had to fabricate a new bracket for the coaster brake (the old one was missing), and I installed a new cable and housing for the handbrake. I coated the rubber parts with a “Like New” product and applied Tire Shine to the tires.

At the end of the project, the bike looked and performed virtually brand-new. I donated the bike to our Department’s program for giving gifts to underprivileged children during the holiday season. The Mongoose ended up under a Christmas tree, and there was one very happy child Christmas morning.

Case Study #2 – Schwinn Super Sport

Just like the Mongoose, the Super Sport came to me because of my reputation as a “bike person”. A former co-worker with whom I reconnected through social media was staying at her brother’s house; he had an “old Schwinn” that hadn’t been ridden in 30 years. Naturally, I was intrigued. The model was unknown because the decals had been removed, but the Schwinn head badge was intact. The pictures seemed to indicate mid-1970s.

On New Year’s Day 2016, I picked up the bike. It was in rougher shape than I expected. The wheels wouldn’t turn, the chain had come off, and the tires were completely dry rotted and otherwise ruined. On the other hand, the frame was in very good shape with little rust and only a few scratches. The bike also had a Brooks saddle, mechanical odometer and an early water bottle cage.

Part of the deal for getting this bike free of charge was that I also had to take two kids’ bikes. Both were Huffys: a 20” girl’s bike in surprisingly good shape, and a 24” mountain-style bike in rougher shape. These I disassembled and put into storage to rebuild for the 2016 Christmas Bicycles.

Back to the Schwinn. The first order of business was to figure out what I had. The serial number on the head tube and a quick internet search revealed that this bike was a 1971 Schwinn Super Sport. In 1971, Schwinn produced a line of “Xtra Light” bicycles using fillet-brazed steel frames, as opposed to the brazed lug frames used by most others. They were quite beautiful. The Super Sport was the entry level for the Xtra Lights, followed by the Sports Tourer, Continental and Paramount lines. These bikes featured Brooks B15 saddles. In many cases, the saddle was saved and the rest of the bike was scrapped. My goal for this bike was to create a museum-quality restoration.

I started working on the bike, and much to my surprise, despite the tires being ruined, the tubes still held air. I usually keep the tires on to protect the rims until I am ready to work on the wheels. Most everything else was in good shape, if not very dusty and dirty. Once the bearings were cleaned and repacked, they all moved smoothly.

The frame had been sitting so long that just a polishing and waxing would not be sufficient to bring back its luster. I had the frame wet sanded with 1500 grit sandpaper, applied the reproduction decals I found on eBay, and then shot it with clear-coat. I also found new old stock yellow handlebar tape on eBay.

Using a wire brush attached to a Dremel tool helped restore much of the metal componentry. In this case, the wheels had to be torn down. I polished the aluminum rims with 1500 grit sandpaper and cleaned each spoke with a wire brush attached to a drill. This was a very labor-intensive process, taking up about six hours per wheel.

For the wheel reassembly, I enlisted a friend who showed me the process. I had never laced up a wheel before. He took the rear while I worked on the front. Reassembling and aligning the wheels for proper dish was also a labor intensive project, again running about six hours per wheel.

The Brooks saddle presented an interesting challenge. The all-leather, B15 saddle definitely looked a bit worse for the wear. Fortunately, our Department’s volunteer program also has a mounted section, so I went to them for advice. One of the volunteers had switched out her leather saddle for a synthetic one, so she had a few leather care products that she no longer needed. I, of course, took her up on the offer, and after hitting the saddle with leather soap and then with protectant, it looked good as new.

Little by little, the bike came back together. Some parts of the bike were new: Kenda makes a new 27 x 1¼ gumwall tire that looks nearly identical to the Schwinn tires. I could not find the stock Schwinn grey cable housing in new old stock, but found that the Shimano grey cable housing made for an effective substitute. New old stock brake pads replaced the existing units.

The last piece was the chain. After cleaning, I went through the chain link-by-link with a wire brush attached to a Dremel. Once the chain was lubed up, it worked smoothly. It really is a testament to the Schwinn designers that their bike could be brought back to life without really major issues.

Once the bike was back together, it was time to ride it! Clearly, a bike that had been sitting for so long was going to have some initial adjustment issues, but one by one, they were sorted out. The riding experience was interesting, to say the least.

You quickly realize just how good modern bicycles have become. The friction shifters are not nearly as exact as indexed shifters, and brakes are only about half as powerful. Frame geometry is very different; the head tube angle, in particular, is much more slack than on today’s bicycles. This makes for a smoother ride, but at the expense of quick handling. And, it’s heavy. At 32 pounds, the Super Sport was considerably lighter than the “middleweight” Varsity (39 pounds), but certainly no match for a modern road bike that tips in at half the Super Sport’s weight.

While this bike is now a well-restored and mechanically sound bike, it really is not a proper candidate for the Department’s donation program. The vintage bicycle market is a very small one and finding a home for this bike may prove to be difficult. It would definitely make a fantastic 70s movie prop, though!

Conclusion

Just like public safety cycling, working on a bike requires training, practice and experience. In cycling, we train on cone and obstacle courses to help learn to overcome various hazards that we may encounter while riding in real world situations. The cadaver bike allows one to train on bicycle maintenance to overcome issues that occur on the rider’s primary bicycle. If your department has a gift program, the cadaver bike could become someone’s holiday wish come true, so you get a double benefit.

If you’ve ever had even the slightest desire to learn bike maintenance, I would strongly encourage you to have at it. You may never know what talents lie in your hands!

David Cohen has been a volunteer with the Maryland-National Capital Park Police, Montgomery County Division, since 2007 and is an avid cyclist both on and off duty. Besides tinkering with bicycles, David also enjoys working on vintage British sports cars and World War II era aircraft. He can be reached at onyxsax@aol.com.

Photos courtesy David Cohen.

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