One of the reasons I feel more comfortable riding my bike than driving is because I know how to fix most problems that can occur with a bike, and the total tool-set that makes it possible is with me all the time (and is less than a pound of weight). Luckily, bicycles are fairly simple instruments, and they won’t electrocute or burn you or chop your arm off if you open them up. Most of the time you don’t even have to waste time with opening them up because there is no lid at all, the mechanism is right in front of your eyes in easy-to-access places.

Also, most adjustables we will look at are not adjustable for luxury, but for necessity/functioning. For example you don’t adjust your seat-post only for comfort, but also for better pedaling efficiency and so you don’t wear out your knees over time. Likewise your break is not adjustable for sheer beauty but because adjusting them properly make them work better, or work at all. So do know the basics: it is better to get oily fingers than getting stuck on the road for hours.

Almost all repair process is not only free information but also easy to find. WikiHow has a pretty good set of information in general about this subject. Also does Bicycle Tutor and Sheldon Brown’s website. And a Google search will bring up a plethora of information too. So if you have a computer, or access to one, you are in good hands.

Nevertheless I will go through some points of adjusting. I am hoping that if you didn’t do anything towards fixing or adjusting your bike maybe you try, and then the ice will break and the next act will come easier. And hopefully you will feel the empowerment I feel since I dare to handle my bike, not just pedal it.

Well, let’s look at the seat-post. You either have a quick-release (a little lever) where the frame meets the tube sticking out of the bottom of the seat, or have some sort of a nut there, to tighten the frame around the seat stem. Loosening either will allow you to raise or lower the seat. Rotating the seat up and down can be adjusted just under the seat, at the top of the seat post. Look for the double nut or Allen wrench hole to make this adjustment. And do own an Allen wrench, it is indispensable for most bikes made this century.

Set the seat so your toes safely reach the road surface without you having to fall in trying. The lower the post is, the safer the stops may be, but also the lower the seat is set, the less effective you are on the saddle, and the more danger pedaling is to your knees on the long term.

Adjusting the handle bar is not harder – if the range it has meets your comfort range. For me usually the highest setting is way too low, as I like upright bicycling, and also because I appreciate comfort a lot more than speed, and the low handlebars are usually to make you think your air dynamics are better, but really it is just a cheaper solution in general to make them lower. When you go for comfort, it is helpful to start with an upright bicycle instead of a road bike or a department store type mountain bike. Otherwise you run out of handlebar-stem length and/or cable length (the brake cables and derailleur cables may be too short), before you reach your comfort range, and then everything gets a lot more complicated. Anyway, usually there is not much stem-length to adjust the handle bars, but you can check that out by loosening the screw on top of the handle bar stem, tapping it lightly with a hammer to get the rig loose, and pull the stem out up to the mark for maximum before re-tightening – also, make sure the front wheel is aligned well to the handle bar – it is annoying to always have to steer left in order to go straight… And be careful not to adjust the handle bar without a few inches in the socket (my minimum is three inches), otherwise the whole steering may be unsafe.

Do I need to mention pumping up the tires? It is just so simple, but why not. I find it is the most beneficial to fill the tires up to the maximum pressur that is suggested on the side of the tire for normal road surfaces, or less for softer surfaces or smoother riding. The lower the pressure the more effort it takes to pedal somewhere though. Well, all this is easy if you have a pump with a pressure-meter of course. If not, just make sure, that you can’t press the tires in one third of the way or more towards the rim, no matter how strongly you try. Even if you sit on the bike. Or, create some useful neighborhoodly connection by going around in the ‘hood, and ask for a pump with the little air-pressure instrument attached.

One more thing about tires: there are two kinds of valves, that are not inter compatible. make sure you have a pump that can fill your tires. However there is a converter from the wider Schrader valve to the narrower Presta Valve, that is a simple instrument indeed and costs maybe a couple of dollars.

Next time we will look at the real adjustment jobs, namely adjusting the brakes and the derailleurs.

A few weeks ago I have seen a picture of the sidecar for a longtail bicycle, which is called Xtracycle. Xtracycle is a cargo bicycle, the earliest of the longtail type, and is famous for the very flexible platform and large amount of accessories. This sidecar is one of them. As you can see from the picture, it has only one wheel, is positioned next to the bicycle, and can be folded up.

I thought it was a marvelous idea. So I started to think in what form could it be replicated so it attaches to a regular bike – just for smaller loads. The main complication is, that a regular bike doesn’t have a lot of space on the back to have a sidecar be hooked up. And even most of the little space it does have on the frame to get something mounted on, is overlapped by the foot of the pedaler, so if anything sticks out to the side, it would get caught.

Well, I did dare to buy the 40 pound load, and mounted it onto the sidekick all right. The roads were mostly cleared by that time, so I got home mostly unscathed. The only thing that happened was that the arm, which was mounted to the chain-stay part of the bicycle frame did get loose, so I had to stop on the way home to put a rope around both and fasten them to each other. And in case you were wondering, here is a picture of the trailer when I folded it up after the trip. Still a little bit askew, due to the loose arm. And, of course, not as quick to get folded up as the Xtracycle sidecar; it takes a bungee cord to hold it in place.

And to better show the amount of snow we got, here is a picture of the chickens trying to find something edible in the narrow path I dug in the snow to be able to get to their coop.

A few weeks ago in a previous post I have described some of my planning efforts for building a bike here.

When I got into building cargo bicycles I set up a rig to be able to build long wheelbase bikes with good alignment, and immediately tested it with building the Front-Loader. And a few months ago I figured out, that a friend of mine, who welds a lot, wants to build a cargo bicycle. We right away made plans of helping each other out with various bike-building projects.

Looking forward to that I cleaned up the Neighborhood Bicycle Resource Center a tad, until I though it will be good to work with someone who actually knows how to weld, and didn’t get all his knowledge on it out of books, like I had. And past weekend this friend of mine came over to start on his cargo bike.

We cut up a BMX bike to use its headset, and welded a strong pipe onto the crank-set of an adult bike to serve as the connector piece between the front and rear end. We almost made it far enough in one day to have a ‘rolling frame’, meaning the front part and the real part welded into a single unit – I think the hardest part of the job, as it is the most important and most difficult to have proper alignment at that stage.

The plan is, that once we are done with this project, and if he still has time in between carrying heavy loads using the new cargo bike, we would start working on the Sylph-alike bike. Hopefully by the event of bicycle week both bikes will be ready.

A friend of mine sent me these pictures. I thought with all the snow outside they will bring back the lush of spring for a moment.

The bicycle is home built, and stands up for the use very well so far. Plus it gives way of good conversations while pedaling. I call it ‘FrontLoader’, or ‘LongNose’, alternatively. It gets a lot of smiles all over town. And Marianne likes it too for the comforts of not pedaling.