4 ms·

Very frustrating to have an otherwise well maintained mountain bike and bombproof wheelset with a snapped fork. To get a new fork I need a new frame and front w

Very frustrating to have an otherwise well maintained mountain bike and bombproof wheelset with a snapped fork. To get a new fork I need a new frame and front wheel. 20mm-thru axles are no longer popular. Headsets similarly have changed design. At this point I have a room of partial bicycles just collecting dust. When new some of these bicycles were more valuable (retail price of all components) than a cheap used car. Then there's the problem of importing them, dealing with customs shakedowns or traveling abroad to purchase them. Internal gearhubs and fat chains are a good choice if you are looking for longevity. Avoid the latest fads where possible. For my usage weight savings is secondary to overall durability. https://www.sheldonbrown.com/internal-gears.html https://www.sheldonbrown.com/internal-gears.html

badcppdev 4y ago
It seems like people rebuilding or repairing cars can easily find spare parts either new or second hand. Why is the situation different for bicycles? I suppose you need the ecosystem of wrecking yards for bicycles and then you need bicycle mechanics who are willing to use spare parts which might be an issue considering that all the places I would go to get my bike fixed would rather sell me a new bike.
- pjc50 4y ago
  All of that exists, it's just .. mostly stolen. (This is probably location dependent, I have no doubt that the Netherlands supports a density of bike shops adequate to its millions of daily bike users)
- bombcar 4y ago
  Because cars are expensive, large, and there are only a very few models (relatively) that share tons of parts. Bikes are smaller and cheaper and the parts are not as interchangeable unless you can weld (and if you have cheap bikes you just buy new).
  - oriolid 4y ago
    Bicycle parts are incredibly standardized compared to cars. Outside exotic racing bikes almost every brand uses the same Shimano parts or compatible copies from other brands. And even between component brands, the way the components attach to frames are somewhat standardized so replacing an entire Shimano drivetrain with Campagnolo or vice versa is possible. The problem is that there are a bit too many standards now.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      Those are the "good bikes" - the article (and I suspect the vast majority of bikes) are the Walmart specials, some of which might use standard components but much of which appear to be one-offs or similar. It would be nice if there WAS a standard - some rating on the box indicating how "replaceable" parts on the bike are, somehow.
      - oriolid 4y ago
        I'm not from the US so I can't just go to Walmart and see. What are these non-standard parts? I'm aware that cheap shock absorbers can be quite wild but what weird parts would a non-suspension bike have? Of course you don't have threaded headsets or freewheels on nice bikes but those are still available and don't have many variants.
        bombcar 4y ago
        The cheapest bikes have weird size pedal assemblies that don’t take “normal” ones and such - but the real problem is a cheap Walmart bike is $98. A single derailleur can cost more than that! No wonder people just throw them away.
        oriolid 4y ago
        I agree that the main reason these things aren't repaired is that a new bike costs less than a couple of spare parts and labor. But I seriously doubt that the weird size pedal assembly is something else than bog standard Fauber crank. Those things are still made and I can't imagine how a custom part would be cheaper to manufacture.
- aww_dang 4y ago
  The most common consumer bikes aren't meant to ridden aggressively. Even those suffer from perpetual incompatibility due to trends. Compare that to something like Toyota Carolla or Honda Civic. Parts are often interchangeable across model years. There's a huge stock in junk yards. A decent off road bicycle is niche in comparison. Every 2-3 years some new standard is introduced. I wouldn't trust my safety on a used bottom bracket or crank arm. Who knows what kinds of insanity the previous owner was involved in?
- justjash 4y ago
  It's not really. Any decent bike shop has bins full of spare parts and take-offs. Then you always have eBay, Marketplace, etc. to find something strange.
- analog31 4y ago
  AFAIK the car makers are required to maintain inventories of spares. And whether by this mechanism or some other, cars have fairly accurate and consistent parts lists, making it relatively easy to figure out which part number is needed for which car. Perhaps the higher volume of car repairs also supports a competitive market for providing parts on quick notice. My independent mechanic has never taken more than a day to fix my car, and that includes getting the parts. With bikes, it's a crap shoot. A typical new bike model does not come with a parts list, and the brands don't stock spares. Every repair turns into a guessing game on which part will actually fit the bike, and a search for a supplier. If the shop needs a part, it has to be ordered and shipped from some distant city. The parts makers (e.g., the biggest one is Shimano) decide when a particular style of part is obsolete and discontinued, and you're on your own. Cheaper bikes (within reason) are better -- they tend to use parts from older standards that are still in widespread use worldwide. For instance there was a long time period (after the so called "bike boom") when most bikes had reasonably interchangeable parts, and many of those component standards such as bottom brackets are still being used today. My hacked together bikes from 1980s parts are still easy to maintain today with minimal skills and tools. The other thing is, the vast majority of cars are not used for competition or sport, and are treated to fairly mild and predictable operating conditions, the exception being when they crash.
  - plorkyeran 4y ago
    > A typical new bike model does not come with a parts list, and the brands don't stock spares. This is probably true for BSOs, but you start getting a complete list of components on a bicycle well before you hit the $1000 price point, and generally everything other than the brake pads are extremely standardized and easy to find. For whatever reason manufacturers really like to get creative with disk brake pad shapes.
  - wiredfool 4y ago
    I've hacked on bikes since the 80's, and I think things are better now(ish), at least if you're not going full squish or hydraulic brakes. I've got 2 bikes with SRAM Rival and Apex that have had perfectly crisp shifting for 7k miles each. There might have been one adjustment barrel turn in there somewhere. They've got some sort of modern, trouble free bottom bracket with a hollow axle. I don't even know, because it's that maintenance free. And that shifting? Much easier than the post bike boom downtube friction shifters. Whereas with my 80's tech bikes, I repacked hubs and bottom brackets every so often, at least until I went with the (more disposable) shimano cartridge BBs. Shifting always needed a little bit of adjustment. My wheels were better than, but I built those wheels (and I know my stuff), but I'm using commercial wheels now. Changing brake pads now is a 2 minute job, just slide them out and put new ones in. It used to be that you'd need to re-align the brake shoes too. Maybe I wasn't all that good at it, but I think I was decent at wrenching. I can strip and reassemble a bike, with the possible exception of the headset races. The bikes now might be less maintainable, but critically, my bikes now just don't need as much maintenance. The invention of the 4 bolt face for the stem is 1000% better than quill stems where you had to pull the brakes and tape off to get 10mm more or less reach. They're also significantly less likely for them to move around against the fork. Threadless headsets are also far easier to set properly and keep them there. The style of larger tires on road bikes is awesome. Comfort and speed. It's nice to be able to get a sub 15 lb bike. 18 used to be stupid light, now it's just a bit pricey. They're not workhorses, but they're fun. For utility, racks are better now. Low rider front racks and the standard mount rear racks were only really introduced in the 80s. There are good front and rear racks at multiple price points that work for light duty or full blown continent crossing epics. You can _get_ cargo bikes, in a variety of shapes, with e-boost and not. Yes, there are bits that aren't compatible. Most shifters need to be paired with compatible derailleurs. Be careful on hydraulic brakes. You have to know if you have disks or rim brakes. You might need to use the proper chain, at least of the right # of speeds. It's difficult to find 27" rim/tires anymore. Shimano doesn't sell replacement bearing cups for their hubs, though you can get the cones. Campy does tho. Its really hard to find a good 8sp mountain freewheel these days. If you want, you can still go full analog and get downtube 11sp friction shifters with non-aero center pull brakes, all with new parts, and it's not even that hard to find if you know where to look, though economy of scale means that it's not going to be cheap. So, The glass is far more than half full.
abricq 4y ago
> For my usage weight savings is secondary to overall durability. I completely agree with that ! Even when bike touring, weight is so much less important than reliability of your gear... It's particularly surprising and sad to notice that older gear is more reliable and of better quality than most new bikes. I guess some brand still provide super high quality and reliable bicycles, but probably it could be hard to maintain yourself (which is definitely another of my requirements)
- JKCalhoun 4y ago
  I have a newer touring bike with a steel frame. My bike-obsessed friend tells me too that the "ride" on a steel frame is more forgiving — aluminum frames being hard and more inflexible. At the same time I also picked up a 1980's or 90's era bicycle on Craigslist for $100 that, after new tires/tubes is a great steel bike as well. There's just something about those tube + brazed-lugged bike frames....
JKCalhoun 4y ago
> Avoid the latest fads where possible. That would seem to me to be the larger issue — at least here in the U.S. among the ranks of the Gentlemen Velocipedists. The big bike brands are, understandably, pushing their new model bikes with new features. (I remember when it was the newfangled elliptical front sprockets.) I do feel the article is a little over-worrisome though. Any bicycle that replaces an automobile has such an overwhelming positive impact in so many areas that complaining about the energy required to make an aluminum frame vs. a steel one seems to be quibbling. My understanding too is that energy intensive manufacturing, like that of aluminum, often take place in regions of the world where energy is cheap: as an example the hydroelectric power along the Columbia River in the U.S. North West.
- desas 4y ago
  > My understanding too is that energy intensive manufacturing, like that of aluminum, often take place in regions of the world where energy is cheap: as an example the hydroelectric power along the Columbia River in the U.S. North West. In the west that's true - mostly American companies operating in Iceland and Norway where there's cheap hydroelectric power, the US isn't one of the top smelters. This involve shipped a lot of alumina and aluminium about. In China it's dug up, extracted, smelted and manufactured all within China. I don't know if that's because energy is cheap, but it's quite possibly not green!
doubled112 4y ago
I think we do different things with our bikes, but this resonated with me. I've had people comment on my bike before. I have to admit it looks like the jokes about mechanic's cars. It is what's left of a 2010 Trek hard tail. Simplicity wins every time. I used it for transportation year round - Southern Ontario winters are a salty, slushy mess. Over the years every replacement was thought out. Single speed up front instead of the triple it came with. Cheap squishy fork was replaced with a rigid one. Kept the 8 speed drive train. Lock on grips because they come off easy. Those brake-shifter combos suck, gone, can replace one or the other now. A good expensive derailleur dissolves just as fast in crap conditions. If you have 15 kg in a rack on the back, who cares about saving 300g on a seat post? I can replace the entire drive train for really cheap now. I forgot to mention that disc brakes win every time. Who wants to replace rims? Plus that keeps the braking surface out of the muck.
ehnto 4y ago
Have you looked for a bicyle co-op near you? They usually horde bicycles and part them out, like a "pick-a-spare" would do for cars. We have a great one here, you can wander the wall of hundreds of bikes and pull off whatever you need. Great atmosphere as well, like a makerspace exclusively for bikes.
DebtDeflation 4y ago
There's a whole subculture around restoring and modifying 90s mountain bikes. See for example the XBiking subreddit. Steel frame, rigid (no suspension), 26X2" wheels/tires, rim brakes, threaded bottom brackets, etc. makes a great platform for an all around bike used for commuting, exercise, on road and off, pretty much anything except road racing or downhill racing at MTB parks. You can absolutely find parts for these bikes everywhere. Stay away from suspension, brifters, (hydraulic) disc brakes, and wireless shifters as these are the ares where there is constant obsolescence and older parts are impossible to find.
wiredfool 4y ago
I don't think 20mm thru was ever a popular axle type. It should be possible to adapt that to a 15mm thru axle with endcaps or a sleeve in the hub though.

badcppdev 4y ago

It seems like people rebuilding or repairing cars can easily find spare parts either new or second hand. Why is the situation different for bicycles? I suppose you need the ecosystem of wrecking yards for bicycles and then you need bicycle mechanics who are willing to use spare parts which might be an issue considering that all the places I would go to get my bike fixed would rather sell me a new bike.

pjc50 4y ago
All of that exists, it's just .. mostly stolen. (This is probably location dependent, I have no doubt that the Netherlands supports a density of bike shops adequate to its millions of daily bike users)
bombcar 4y ago
Because cars are expensive, large, and there are only a very few models (relatively) that share tons of parts. Bikes are smaller and cheaper and the parts are not as interchangeable unless you can weld (and if you have cheap bikes you just buy new).
- oriolid 4y ago
  Bicycle parts are incredibly standardized compared to cars. Outside exotic racing bikes almost every brand uses the same Shimano parts or compatible copies from other brands. And even between component brands, the way the components attach to frames are somewhat standardized so replacing an entire Shimano drivetrain with Campagnolo or vice versa is possible. The problem is that there are a bit too many standards now.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Those are the "good bikes" - the article (and I suspect the vast majority of bikes) are the Walmart specials, some of which might use standard components but much of which appear to be one-offs or similar. It would be nice if there WAS a standard - some rating on the box indicating how "replaceable" parts on the bike are, somehow.
    - oriolid 4y ago
      I'm not from the US so I can't just go to Walmart and see. What are these non-standard parts? I'm aware that cheap shock absorbers can be quite wild but what weird parts would a non-suspension bike have? Of course you don't have threaded headsets or freewheels on nice bikes but those are still available and don't have many variants.
      - bombcar 4y ago
        The cheapest bikes have weird size pedal assemblies that don’t take “normal” ones and such - but the real problem is a cheap Walmart bike is $98. A single derailleur can cost more than that! No wonder people just throw them away.
        oriolid 4y ago
        I agree that the main reason these things aren't repaired is that a new bike costs less than a couple of spare parts and labor. But I seriously doubt that the weird size pedal assembly is something else than bog standard Fauber crank. Those things are still made and I can't imagine how a custom part would be cheaper to manufacture.
aww_dang 4y ago
The most common consumer bikes aren't meant to ridden aggressively. Even those suffer from perpetual incompatibility due to trends. Compare that to something like Toyota Carolla or Honda Civic. Parts are often interchangeable across model years. There's a huge stock in junk yards. A decent off road bicycle is niche in comparison. Every 2-3 years some new standard is introduced. I wouldn't trust my safety on a used bottom bracket or crank arm. Who knows what kinds of insanity the previous owner was involved in?
justjash 4y ago
It's not really. Any decent bike shop has bins full of spare parts and take-offs. Then you always have eBay, Marketplace, etc. to find something strange.
analog31 4y ago
AFAIK the car makers are required to maintain inventories of spares. And whether by this mechanism or some other, cars have fairly accurate and consistent parts lists, making it relatively easy to figure out which part number is needed for which car. Perhaps the higher volume of car repairs also supports a competitive market for providing parts on quick notice. My independent mechanic has never taken more than a day to fix my car, and that includes getting the parts. With bikes, it's a crap shoot. A typical new bike model does not come with a parts list, and the brands don't stock spares. Every repair turns into a guessing game on which part will actually fit the bike, and a search for a supplier. If the shop needs a part, it has to be ordered and shipped from some distant city. The parts makers (e.g., the biggest one is Shimano) decide when a particular style of part is obsolete and discontinued, and you're on your own. Cheaper bikes (within reason) are better -- they tend to use parts from older standards that are still in widespread use worldwide. For instance there was a long time period (after the so called "bike boom") when most bikes had reasonably interchangeable parts, and many of those component standards such as bottom brackets are still being used today. My hacked together bikes from 1980s parts are still easy to maintain today with minimal skills and tools. The other thing is, the vast majority of cars are not used for competition or sport, and are treated to fairly mild and predictable operating conditions, the exception being when they crash.
- plorkyeran 4y ago
  > A typical new bike model does not come with a parts list, and the brands don't stock spares. This is probably true for BSOs, but you start getting a complete list of components on a bicycle well before you hit the $1000 price point, and generally everything other than the brake pads are extremely standardized and easy to find. For whatever reason manufacturers really like to get creative with disk brake pad shapes.
- wiredfool 4y ago
  I've hacked on bikes since the 80's, and I think things are better now(ish), at least if you're not going full squish or hydraulic brakes. I've got 2 bikes with SRAM Rival and Apex that have had perfectly crisp shifting for 7k miles each. There might have been one adjustment barrel turn in there somewhere. They've got some sort of modern, trouble free bottom bracket with a hollow axle. I don't even know, because it's that maintenance free. And that shifting? Much easier than the post bike boom downtube friction shifters. Whereas with my 80's tech bikes, I repacked hubs and bottom brackets every so often, at least until I went with the (more disposable) shimano cartridge BBs. Shifting always needed a little bit of adjustment. My wheels were better than, but I built those wheels (and I know my stuff), but I'm using commercial wheels now. Changing brake pads now is a 2 minute job, just slide them out and put new ones in. It used to be that you'd need to re-align the brake shoes too. Maybe I wasn't all that good at it, but I think I was decent at wrenching. I can strip and reassemble a bike, with the possible exception of the headset races. The bikes now might be less maintainable, but critically, my bikes now just don't need as much maintenance. The invention of the 4 bolt face for the stem is 1000% better than quill stems where you had to pull the brakes and tape off to get 10mm more or less reach. They're also significantly less likely for them to move around against the fork. Threadless headsets are also far easier to set properly and keep them there. The style of larger tires on road bikes is awesome. Comfort and speed. It's nice to be able to get a sub 15 lb bike. 18 used to be stupid light, now it's just a bit pricey. They're not workhorses, but they're fun. For utility, racks are better now. Low rider front racks and the standard mount rear racks were only really introduced in the 80s. There are good front and rear racks at multiple price points that work for light duty or full blown continent crossing epics. You can _get_ cargo bikes, in a variety of shapes, with e-boost and not. Yes, there are bits that aren't compatible. Most shifters need to be paired with compatible derailleurs. Be careful on hydraulic brakes. You have to know if you have disks or rim brakes. You might need to use the proper chain, at least of the right # of speeds. It's difficult to find 27" rim/tires anymore. Shimano doesn't sell replacement bearing cups for their hubs, though you can get the cones. Campy does tho. Its really hard to find a good 8sp mountain freewheel these days. If you want, you can still go full analog and get downtube 11sp friction shifters with non-aero center pull brakes, all with new parts, and it's not even that hard to find if you know where to look, though economy of scale means that it's not going to be cheap. So, The glass is far more than half full.

abricq 4y ago

> For my usage weight savings is secondary to overall durability. I completely agree with that ! Even when bike touring, weight is so much less important than reliability of your gear... It's particularly surprising and sad to notice that older gear is more reliable and of better quality than most new bikes. I guess some brand still provide super high quality and reliable bicycles, but probably it could be hard to maintain yourself (which is definitely another of my requirements)

JKCalhoun 4y ago
I have a newer touring bike with a steel frame. My bike-obsessed friend tells me too that the "ride" on a steel frame is more forgiving — aluminum frames being hard and more inflexible. At the same time I also picked up a 1980's or 90's era bicycle on Craigslist for $100 that, after new tires/tubes is a great steel bike as well. There's just something about those tube + brazed-lugged bike frames....

JKCalhoun 4y ago

> Avoid the latest fads where possible. That would seem to me to be the larger issue — at least here in the U.S. among the ranks of the Gentlemen Velocipedists. The big bike brands are, understandably, pushing their new model bikes with new features. (I remember when it was the newfangled elliptical front sprockets.) I do feel the article is a little over-worrisome though. Any bicycle that replaces an automobile has such an overwhelming positive impact in so many areas that complaining about the energy required to make an aluminum frame vs. a steel one seems to be quibbling. My understanding too is that energy intensive manufacturing, like that of aluminum, often take place in regions of the world where energy is cheap: as an example the hydroelectric power along the Columbia River in the U.S. North West.

desas 4y ago
> My understanding too is that energy intensive manufacturing, like that of aluminum, often take place in regions of the world where energy is cheap: as an example the hydroelectric power along the Columbia River in the U.S. North West. In the west that's true - mostly American companies operating in Iceland and Norway where there's cheap hydroelectric power, the US isn't one of the top smelters. This involve shipped a lot of alumina and aluminium about. In China it's dug up, extracted, smelted and manufactured all within China. I don't know if that's because energy is cheap, but it's quite possibly not green!

doubled112 4y ago

I think we do different things with our bikes, but this resonated with me. I've had people comment on my bike before. I have to admit it looks like the jokes about mechanic's cars. It is what's left of a 2010 Trek hard tail. Simplicity wins every time. I used it for transportation year round - Southern Ontario winters are a salty, slushy mess. Over the years every replacement was thought out. Single speed up front instead of the triple it came with. Cheap squishy fork was replaced with a rigid one. Kept the 8 speed drive train. Lock on grips because they come off easy. Those brake-shifter combos suck, gone, can replace one or the other now. A good expensive derailleur dissolves just as fast in crap conditions. If you have 15 kg in a rack on the back, who cares about saving 300g on a seat post? I can replace the entire drive train for really cheap now. I forgot to mention that disc brakes win every time. Who wants to replace rims? Plus that keeps the braking surface out of the muck.

ehnto 4y ago

Have you looked for a bicyle co-op near you? They usually horde bicycles and part them out, like a "pick-a-spare" would do for cars. We have a great one here, you can wander the wall of hundreds of bikes and pull off whatever you need. Great atmosphere as well, like a makerspace exclusively for bikes.

DebtDeflation 4y ago

There's a whole subculture around restoring and modifying 90s mountain bikes. See for example the XBiking subreddit. Steel frame, rigid (no suspension), 26X2" wheels/tires, rim brakes, threaded bottom brackets, etc. makes a great platform for an all around bike used for commuting, exercise, on road and off, pretty much anything except road racing or downhill racing at MTB parks. You can absolutely find parts for these bikes everywhere. Stay away from suspension, brifters, (hydraulic) disc brakes, and wireless shifters as these are the ares where there is constant obsolescence and older parts are impossible to find.

wiredfool 4y ago

I don't think 20mm thru was ever a popular axle type. It should be possible to adapt that to a 15mm thru axle with endcaps or a sleeve in the hub though.