Trade: Assemble bike

If i buy a bike from abroad, how hard is it to reassemble. How much would a bike shop charge for this service?

Have you done any bike maintenance before? It kinda depends on how it arrives - some come partially assembled so that all you have to do is straighten the handlebars, adjust the seatpost etc. If it's a full build from scratch, chances are you'll need some special tools to put it together.

Full bike build price here:

http://www.fitzroviabicycles.com/p/workshop.html

These guys know their stuff and usually turn things around real quick.

if i were you, i would spend £50-£100 on a half decent set of tools, depending on what you need and get on youtube. the only challenges your really gonna face are headset installation. all the rest is easy peasy. (with the right tool headset is simple too)

my 2p

two answers- Simples & £50 ish (or beers if its resourced from here)

Are you asking for assistance?

Bring it to a Beers night and you can ride it home maybe....

if you live near harrow area let me know can bring to me or can bring tools to you pint a guinness and 20 b&h

if i were you, i would spend £50-£100 on a half decent set of tools, depending on what you need and get on youtube. the only challenges your really gonna face are headset installation. all the rest is easy peasy. (with the right tool headset is simple too)

my 2p

If you really think this then you are never allowed anywhere near my bike. Don't even look at it.

And @op,
Bike repair is one of those "if you have to ask, you probably shouldn't be doing it"

There are a lot of nuances to setting up a bike properly, and if you aren't sure how then it might be best to take it to a shop (between £30-£50 labour).

Why? Its true. A fixed gear bike requires a set of allan keys, a 15mm spanner and a BB tool to put together. Thats the beauty of them is their simplicity. As he says the headset press is the only expensive bit of kit involved. I would buy the tools, spend some time on internets and reading bike maintenance books and do it yourself then you have that knowledge for ever.

+1

Although some people do have a natural aptitude for these kind of things.

Well, the OP didn't say it was either fixed or SS, and if there are any problems with the bike, how would you know if you didn't know what you were looking at?

TBH, I don't really know why I bother, I make more money when you guys do things wrong then when you take them to me the first time.

"If you have to ask, you probably shouldn't be doing it"

Will you be using that as the tagline for your women's bike maintenance classes you're organizing?
Surely assuming that somebody won't be able to build a bike by watching somebody else do it, and suggesting they just take it to a bike shop goes against what you're trying to promote no?

If that were true then nobody would ever learn anything for themselves.

It's very true Nhaat, as a bike mechanic you can make loads of money from numptys who don't know anything and either mess up and need help or are willing to pay £10 to change a puncture and if that is your attitude then good for you. I would always come to you to get gears setup, suspension forks serviced and any other 'big' job but to make the assumption that anyone who asks for help building a bike automatically needs to throw money at you rather than buying tools and learning skills that they can use is pretty bad.

I didn't want to use this a a platform to promote classes where I teach. Yes, I feel like learning how to do things properly is a very good thing to do, and when I have time I always teach people at my shop how to do the simpler things on their bikes. This is not something I would bank on your local mechanic always having the time to do.

Day bike maintenance class: £70 plus you need to want to learn.
Getting a bike checked over and set up at a bike shop:£30-£50

@ Omar,
Look, maybe I'm coming across badly at this, but from what the OP has said, it sounds like they have very little knowledge of bikes.
I've seen a lot of very, very poorly set up bikes come into the shops where I've worked over the years, and although I am all for people learning how to do things properly, So often people don't spend the time to learn properly, plus it's not that easy to figure out how to think in bike if you haven't had to do this before.
Start from a place where your bike works perfectly, where you know it's safe (remember, as much as we love bikes they are primarily for transport and need to be road worthy). As things need doing, learn how to do them. Get excited about small triumphs of learning how to fix a puncture and how to replace brake pads when the need arises, but give your self a chance to learn what your bike feels like when it works properly so that you know when it isn't.

Please Nhatt...don't turn it into another 'having a go at me' issue.

I was simply responding to your post just the same as others have, and I stand by what i say.
The way people learn to do things is by doing things.
There are hundreds of tutorials, notably ones by Park tools, which are perfect for helping people to learn to do things for themselves, and telling them exactly what to look out for.

Your post seemed very dismissive of this and implied that if you don't already have the knowledge, then you should just take it to a bike shop, which seemed a strange comment for somebody to make who is organizing a bike maintenance class..

I'm not the only person who commented on your post or disagreed with it, so there's really no need to 'take this up personally'.

I'll leave you to it as you seem to take personal offence to me posting in the same threads as you.

To the OP...I say have a go at putting it together yourself...it's much more rewarding, and if there is anything specific you get stuck on, just ask, there will be plenty of people on here willing to talk you through it I'm sure.

TBF,
we are arguing about whether someone we have never met is qualified of fixing their own bike.

I think this needs to go to the fail thread >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Nhatt. I'm a mechanical buffoon with a box of tools and an interest in learning more. But I'm aware that my knowledge (particularly my sensitivity to the variants caused by part types, tolerances compatibility etc) is at a minimum. This creates a situation where I spend a lot of time fiddling about with simple tasks on my bike, watching other buffoons on youtube, phoning mates who know a tad more than me and ultimately getting things wrong. The result - an imperfect build, the consumption of huge amounts of the time I should be using to do my job and the ultimate result that I need to cough 50 notes or more to a specialist like yourself so that you can do your job.

At no point in this process am I under the impression that I'm a mechanic. In fact most of my greasy fumblings are nothing more than a way to become better involved with the function of my bikes so that I am just very slightly less of an imbecile when I do inevitably have to defer to someone qualified to do the work. The greasier and more confused I get the more comfortable I feel handing over my tangled mess at an LBS, laughing off my ineptitude and pleading for mercy.

Surely one of the joys of bike ownership is that despite its subtle complexities the fundamentals of the machine are accessible or at least comprehensible enough that IF you're interested you can get your hands dirty. And if you perform even the most basic repairs you feel more in tune with your ride. I seem to be a perma-noob when it comes to bikes. The older I get the less I know in relation to the obsessed and the qualified. But I'll always want to attempt to do a little more each time. And having pulled a load of bits together into a less than perfect but serviceable and safe ride for the first time recently I was so proud of myself (even though as a build it would be flamed as soon as anyone with a brain saw it).

But for what it's worth - my giving it a bit of a go never made me feel that I wouldn't require the services of a mech or an LBS. As you say, quite the opposite - it probably made me rely on them more as I continued to require parts, advice and ultimately help.

I don't really know why I felt the need to write this - or indeed why anyone else should give a kak about my personal limited experience. Perhaps my conclusion is the same as yours... Get in there by all means and try it yourself OP but it won't run as smoothly as you imagine and ultimately the cheapest option might be to take it straight to Nhatt as you'll be doing that in the end almost certainly. But maybe give it a whirl. You might learn something.

Well, the OP didn't say it was either fixed or SS, and if there are any problems with the bike, how would you know if you didn't know what you were looking at?

TBH, I don't really know why I bother, I make more money when you guys do things wrong then when you take them to me the first time.

Wow. I was responding to this and the above by the way. But in the time it took me to write my bit it all looks to have kicked off. I'm just off to read the rest of the thread so that I can assess how far into my mouth I've jammed my own foot!

I do have to say that I'm coming at this from the opposite side of all of you, all I see are bikes that have had something go wrong on them, I never have people who bought a bike off the internet just pop in to say that they are working perfectly.

I do see a lot of bikes come in that have been assembled poorly and therefor don't stop properly, don't go properly, or have bits that would like to fall off.

But this is probably because I'm in a bike shop, people come to me only when things go wrong.

I think I've come across as someone who doesn't believe that people should do their own repairs AT ALL.

I'm not. I do think things should be done properly, as a bike needs to be safe above all else.

I'm all for learning how to do things, giving things a try.

I just want you (all of you, even Scott ;-) ), and the OP to be safe. If your first port of call is starting a thread on a forum about how to assemble a bike instead of having a google and looking at the Park Tools website, then you might have a bit of trouble figuring out how to space a headset properly or set up canti brakes.

I'm fairly comfortable putting a bike together, and have the majority of the tools, but I'd take a new frame to a bike shop to have the headset and bottom bracket faced and the threads chased through, I'd ask them to whack the headset in also if it was a standard one.

And I own a selection of hammers- crazy eh?

Mental.

You use them for installing the inverse shims, no?

I just want you (all of you, even Scott ;-) ), and the OP to be safe.

;]

Thats the beauty of them is their simplicity.

I thought it was the zen, but whatever.

Start from a place where your bike works perfectly, where you know it's safe (remember, as much as we love bikes they are primarily for transport and need to be road worthy). As things need doing, learn how to do them. Get excited about small triumphs of learning how to fix a puncture and how to replace brake pads when the need arises, but give your self a chance to learn what your bike feels like when it works properly so that you know when it isn't.

This seems like very sage advice.