Buying Basic Cycling Tools

As part of my efforts to improve the efficiency and enjoyability of my “green transportation,” I’ve determined to purchase some tools to help me with the following:

1)    maintain my current, cheap mountain bike, so that my parts last longer and I can save money, not have to throw out the parts for new ones, and have a smoother ride

2)    fix up my nicer, old mountain bike, which has:

a.     rust on many parts

b.     a broken chain

c.     suspicious cogset (set of gears on the rear wheel hub)

d.    broken spokes and spoke nipples

One of the things people don’t know about bikes – at least in the U.S., for the casual rider – is that you are supposed to apply lubricant to your chain rather frequently. If you don’t do that, the chain is likely to stretch over time.

Riding with a stretched, improperly sized chain will cause the teeth in the cogset (the gears in the back) in the rear wheel to deform. Then, you have to replace not only the whole chain, but the entire cogset.

Unfortunately, I learned this the hard way, and that’s why my old mountain bike has both a broken chain and a suspicious cogset (the teeth on the cogset are deformed).

Ideally, you’re supposed to lube your bike chain frequently. Lubing it gives it an extra coating that prevents dirt and debris from getting trapped within the chainlinks (each part of the chain), which leads to wear.

And, lubing generally provides for smoother action. I imagine it’s similar to changing the “engine oil” in a car.

I found out that there are two types of lube: dry and wet. Dry lube is for dry conditions, wet lube for wet. Dry lube has the potential to get washed off in the rain, but if the weather is too dry, wet lube, which is stickier, can attract more gunk.

I wasn’t sure which to use, and thought it might be redundant, or a bit costly, to have both of them. Even though wet lube probably works better for New England’s weather conditions, which are looking wetter and wetter as winter approaches, I wasn’t sure if I would lube my chain and wipe it down enough to prevent the potential buildup of gunk.

So, I opened my copy of Zinn and the Art of Mountain Bike Maintenance and found that the author recommended ProGold Chain Lube. After scrolling through Amazon and looking at the top chain lube products, I decided to stick with that, as multiple reviewers mentioned it noticeably lengthening the life of their chain.

I’d like to also know more about how to maintain bikes. One of my dreams has been to go on a bike tour; as I roadtripped across my car in my SUV, I felt guilty about how much gasoline I was consuming. So, if I were able to bike tour, I would be able to still go on a “roadtrip,” but by consuming less petroleum, having fun, and getting ripped. Of course, it’s not realistic to think that I could ride all the way from here to Grand Teton and then through other mountainous regions, as I’m nowhere near the level of fitness that’s required for that. But, maybe a short tour – like from Boston to Cape Cod – would be doable.

One of the things that has most prevented me from bike touring, however, is this lack of knowledge regarding bike maintenance. If my bike breaks on a random trail in the middle of the woods, knowing how to fix some basic things on it is crucial. Not knowing could make the difference between life or death, or even of having a good time versus a terrible one.

To that end, I want to at least be able to fix some basic things – that urban bike commuters don’t necessarily need to know – such as how to deal with a bent rim, or a messed-up chain, or a broken spoke.

The current state of my old mountain bike – which has a bunch of problems – is the perfect opportunity for me to explore that.

Even though I already have a sort of generic “toolbox” with a lot of stuff in it, like hammers and wrenches, for biking you need more specialized tools. As such, I decided to buy a bike multitool, which is a like a Swiss Army knife, but for bikes. The set that I got, this Crank Brothers M19 set on Amazon, has received great reviews. It’s about $20 and includes hex keys (apparently, they have to be metric hex keys, as in, written in mm rather than in 16ths), spoke wrenches, chain tool, one Torx thing, and screwdriver heads.

Also, because I know I’ll eventually have to mess a lot with the wheels of my old mountain bike, I threw in a $5 set of tire levers, which are like these tiny hinged arms you stick between the rim of the wheel and the tire, to pop off the tire.

So, total cost of chain lube, multitool, and tire levers: $33 including tax.

Regarding rust, I read somewhere that Coca-Cola would do the trick. So, I’ll update once I start to fix the rust. I imagine that finding a way to store my bike inside, or at least shield it with some sort of tarp, could help with that. It’s been rainy here the past couple of days.

Fortunately, I already have a bike pump, and some rags I can use to wipe and clean. I’ll continue this when I get my stuff in the mail!

Easy Ways to Go Green #1: Don't Drive

In this week’s series of posts, I’m going to talk about the major stuff I’ve already done. This is so you know my starting point. In later posts I’ll go into more detail about each of these. But I firmly believe that what I’ve already done can be doable by a large majority of people.

If one of these suggestions doesn’t work for you, that’s ok. Remember: you don’t have to change your whole lifestyle. Just do what you can.

Part 1: DON’T DRIVE.

Automobile pollution is one of the single greatest contributors to climate change, and it’s a tragedy as well because cars have completely overtaken our street infrastructure to the detriment of anyone who wants to use the street any other way. Our entire road system caters to the existence not of buses, trains, bikes, or groups of friends, but to ugly, outsized plastic abominations. If you’ve ever waited ages for the walk sign or ridden a bike for ten minutes, you’ll notice that the whole power structure of the American road puts you, a pedestrian or cyclist, at the very bottom, in favor of machines that could literally kill you at any time.

Cars are not just methods of transport, they are killing machines that, like guns, operate entirely at the mercy of their handler. Drive one fast enough and you can commit an act of terrorism, as people have done, or just roll over someone’s beloved pet or a person themselves. Drive a car anywhere, for any time, and you’ve just literally directly released global warming, i.e. carbon dioxide, straight into the air.

If there’s anything you can do, put the brake on your driving, unless there is literally no other way to get to where you want to be. If you’re in a situation where that’s impossible, at least carpool or consider investing in a Prius or other electric vehicle if you have the money for it. Going on a roadtrip, shuttling your 3-person family around, or living in your car are acceptable uses, but if you’re driving half a mile to go to Sonic to order a smoothie in the middle of the night, please stop.

As an alternative to the foul automobile (long past its vintage days of glory in which it at least looked nice), riding a bicycle is probably the most personally satisfying   thing I’ve done to reduce my carbon footprint. Biking is an extremely enjoyable activity; once you zoom past one congested string of cars, you’ll never think about getting in that queue to hell again. If you’re living somewhere with decent bike lanes, save yourself the hassle of insurance, refueling, going to the DMV to register and reregister your vehicle, and inhaling clouds of smog while growing angrier by the second.

Supposing that where you live has bike-friendly infrastructure, as in bike lanes and cars that go at speeds less than 25-35 mph, spend the $100-$150 on a used bike off Craigslist. Bring it to your local shop for a tune-up, which will cost about $50 if it’s a cheap, good shop. Buy a $20 helmet, $40 U-lock (these are more secure) and chain. Add an optional $10 bottle of chain lube and a $15 bike pump. Even at conservative estimates, this $200-$250 in fixed cost, in one year, is cheap as hell for a machine you’ll enjoy using for years. That’s literally like $15-20 a month, cheaper than any car payment, lease, insurance, gas, whatever, you’ll find: not to mention the instant cardio and interval workout and the pure childlike joy of whooshing down roads where everyone else is crawling slower than snails.

When you bike, you can actually feel the breeze rush past, your legs pumping energy, the landscape sweeping  around you in myriad colors. Contrast that with being locked in a metal box, suffocating with rage. Granted, if you bike, you’ll be pissed off at drivers, too, but it’s mostly out of pity, and when that’s not happening, you’ll feel a certain zen that you absolutely would not in an oversized moving prison.

It’s a shame that in America, basically any form of non-car transport has been oppressed by our car-worshipping infrastructure. In some ways it represents what the industrial age has done to us: replacing the power of the human body with faceless plastic hunks that degrade and enrage the people trapped within.

Although I like biking, electric scooters, mopeds, roller blades, and skateboards are all neat options. It’s even cool, too, to ride a motorcycle, as motorcycles can get 100 miles to a single gallon of gas. They’re dangerous, though, compared to a bike, and require registration. So, if you can’t bike for whatever reason,  such as maybe a lack of  bike lanes in your area,  maybe you could do half your commute with an electric scooter on a sidewalk; Razr sells a scooter for about $150.

Anywhere you go in America, there’s also bound to be a cycling or streets organization, interested in replacing our car infrastructure with real infrastructure that values human connection and health as opposed to road rage and roadkill. Find out who these people are, maybe on the weekend when you’re sick of sitting in traffic for the umpteenth time. Maybe you could sign a petition, or show support for their efforts. It’s your tax money: Do you want asphalt lanes full of air pollution, crushed animals, and simpering pedestrians skittering like roaches? Or do you want parks, greenways, and people eating ice cream, not having to inhale in mushroom clouds of petroleum? Use your dollar and your time to  vote for that, and not Exxon, Chevron, and Shell.

Down with cars, down with the oil economy.