I recently bought a junk bike. I want to slowly fix it up myself for two reasons: 1. To have a nicer bike. 2. To learn about bike maintenance. I’d like to improve it slowly (weeks or months) while keeping it functional. What order should I consider improvements?
I’ll elaborate. When I first bought the bike, I tuned the brakes (linear pull). I struggled. I realized brake tuning was difficult because my wheel wasn’t aligned. In retrospect, I should have straightened/replaced the wheel before tuning the brakes. I’m wondering if there are any insights you could provide about the order I should tackle this project (e.g., wheel alightment before brakes).
you don’t have to get disc brakes either. you can true the wheel in the frame with temporary zip ties to guage distance and a spoke wrench, with the bike upside down or in a stand. I just hate doing it enough to not want to do it to the degree required for brake performance is unaffected.
I would recommend even just a cheapo spoke tension meter from aliexpress or something to make sure you dont over tension any. I like to oil the spoke nipples then loosen or tighten them all to be about the same before starting, and then just get it as close as I can without going too high. too high depends on the spoke guage mostly but if the bike has rim brakes they are probably pretty thick and can take more than the literal toothpicks my current bike has which I have snapped a few of.
Down the line if you do get a bike with disc brakes, cable pull IMO doesn’t offer enough performance improvement to be worthwhile but hydraulic introduces more maintentance procedures. I’ll personally take it over rim wear and truing affecting brakes but it is potentially troublesome work. I have also found that even common aliexpress brands for hydraulic brakes are on par with the name brands in performance and reliability at a fraction of the cost, excluding the absolute top of the line which after testing I don’t feel I’ll ever need anyway.