Hacks / Bodges

I got a flat today on the way home from work, so I changed out the tube and there were no hacks in involved there.
But I have a poxy Lezyne screw on pump and it kept doing its famous trick of removing the valve core when you’ve finished inflating the tyre. So I did this to get home.

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I used to have this problem but added a tiny valve core wrench to my toolkit to tighten them up.

If you are using tubes, you can make them pretty immune to ever unscrewing with pliers.

I do nip them up normally, but this was a brand new one straight out of the box.

You can also get valve covers with built in core wrenches.

Good bodging.

I had this problem as well, with large volume MTB tyres and a tiny pump no less so it was particularly disheartening to see it deflate.

The solution: flip your pump's valve to schrader and then use one of those little brass convertors to turn it back into presta. (Long term solution was getting a bigger pump as the micro ones take too long for big tyres).

poxy Lezyne screw on pump

Yeah. Mine does that. Seems worse with Conti tubes somehow.

A few things I've seen recently, not my work

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poxy Lezyne screw on pump

You probably already know but if you use the little button to release a little pressure it's a lot easier.

What is this for?

A broke key welded to a screwdriver?

"If a man's got his shank and you've got your shank/I beg you don't panic
The story be tragic, I back out my suttin/
I push it in stomachs"

?

Where's your tool?

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Had to improvise a dual pull brake lever for the cargo bike, didn't want to order and wait for specific parts (though will prob order a real dual lever though, for piece of mind). Stole the idea from stuff seen online. Bit of aluminium spare struts from a rack, that were conveniently threaded inside, drilled to two diameters across, then cut a little brass plate, drilled and tapped to receive spare adjusters from old canti hangers.

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Nice work Loïc. Speaking of hacks you could make yourself the tool to hold the rear wheel when the bike is tipped on its front for work or storage It's basically a long rod that is S-shaped, it's very handy for shops that work on Christiania bikes a lot here.

Ta! Do you have a picture of the storage trick? Maybe I'm not googling the right key words, can't find it...

I'll take one at my friend's shop, it looked homemade.

Not much of a hack but some PVC pipe offcut and 10 minutes with a dremel and I’ve got an aero bar light mount.

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Posted in the Holt my beer thread but probably also relevant here. When fitting a (rear) rack and either worried about the bolt working loose or sheering off under heavy load you can do as round the world tourers used to do and thread the (longer) bolts in backwards so the head is on the inside of the frame then get a nyloc nut on the outside to clamp it all together. Means you won’t lose a bolt, and if in the worst case it shears off you can still get the bolt out and replace it as the head is on the inside attached to the frame and not lying in the dirt.

Mudguard stay mudflap. Not as fragile as it looks 😎

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i like that

😎

My VO mudguards broke around the brake bridge after zillions of KMs of riding and drilling one too many holes in them.

I cleaned up the break to #accidentalrinko and bridged the gap created at the CS bridge with a spacer + flap made from a taped-up milk carton offcut. Basically invisible and, better still, free.

Plz excuse the dorky gravel dad-spec Muc-Off mat.

the brake bridge support on my rear mudguard broke yesterday so I stopped outside a small Tesco and liberated a zip tie from a lamp post and zipped it up.
you can always count on a lamp post outside a small Tesco for a plentiful supply of zip ties.

Cleats were protruding from the soles of my shoes - $12 later at a Ecuadorean cobbler and I got these stuck on. A little agricultural but doing the job fine for mountain track hike-a-bikes.

The cleats were too far recessed so a few shims made from an old bidon (previously used as a mudflap) sorted things out.

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top tip