Let’s assume the hours I will put to this are part of education, I want to get familiar with simple 1990s bikes as training for my more expensive modern bike.
I bought a set of new V-brakes including cables from AliExpress on the singles day sale to replace. This is the only purchase I have made so far in anticipation.
Bottom bracket seems gone, I may take it to a community open workshop because I am not going to buy a bottom bracket tool for this bike only, and if possible I will try to clean and restore it.
The saddle is going to the rubbish because it has mould on it (bike may have been stored outside).
Do you think the bike is worth saving? I can use it to more around, go shopping, etc, and probably nobody will want to steal it anyway even if I leave it hours or days outside.
fazzonvr on
Worth it economically, probably not.
Worth it gaining experience and teaching yourself some skill, yeah why not. It’s up to you how much you want to invest into that.
MinnesotaMikeP on
Will the bike be a good learning experience? Yes
Will you recoup your money you spend on parts? Nope.
Fix it up and donate it to someone in need and be grateful for what you learned.
Mule_Mule on
You ask if this bike is ‘worth it’… That’s very vague. This bike was never pricey and won’t be worth much even when restored perfectly. If you only want to learn and ride it, sure. Practice and the satisfaction of a siccessfully restored bike is worth a lot!
Regarding your purchases: the v brakes that were installed are actually decent and probably better than 90 percent of the stuff you can buy at Ali express.
The things mos bikes need replaced are cables, cable housings, brake pads, chains (maybe chainrings and cassette) and tires. Most of the other stuff is often repairable/cleanable/derustable and regreasable.
The bottom bracket probably is beyond you in the moment so visiting a bike cooperative or your l.b.s. is the way to go there.
Go to youtube and try to take care of the bike component by component with the help of tutorials. Parktools for example have good tutorials. Bike coops are also often a great place to learn.
Good luck and have fun! An update when you’re done would be nice 🙂
i_oliveira on
I’ve restored two similar bikes from somewhere around 2010.
I spent a good amount of money and time, learned some stuff which is transferable to newer bikes, cursed A LOT and ended up with two old bikes looking new which nobody wants to ride.
I_NEED_YOUR_MONEY on
nope. you will spend more on parts than you would on a newer, better bike. a lot of the parts on that bike do not exist on newer and better bikes, so the knowledge you gain will only be valuable for restoring more bikes like that one. and assuming you do a great job and get it all perfectly restored, you’re still going to end up with what is not a very nice bike.
learning about square-taper bottom brackets, riveted chainrings, quill stems, old suntour coil forks, and v-brakes is not a great starting place.
frozenchosun on
this is a great bike to learn the basics on: run new shifting and brake cables, learn that theyre different from each other for a reason, same with housing. learn how to correctly use crank pullers without stripping the threads. learn how to replace a cassette and use a chain whip tool. bust open the hubs and learn how to rebuild and repack them. learn all those things on a free bike. who cares if you fuck it up.
StereotypicalAussie on
It’s not a very good bike, and won’t be even when you’ve finished. There are similar era bikes that will be nice to use and look at when you’re done. You can probably get them for free!
Michael_of_Derry on
It’s not a great bike. It might even be termed a bicycle shaped object. I would leave it back.
There are plenty of top quality bikes available for very little.
In MTB 26 inch was standard wheel size. Now it’s 29 inch. There are great quality 26 and 27.5 inch varieties which nobody wants. So you can pick up a quality bike for very little.
In road biking the market has moved to disc brakes. Again there are plenty of great quality rim brake bikes being sold cheaply because they are not fashionable.
It’s difficult to learn anything on bikes with cheap components. Even when new they never work well.
Aggressive_Ad_5454 on
Yes, great bike for wrenching away on as a beginner. Everything’s visible. It’s probably got some things wrong that you can actually fix. And, if you wreck something ( unlikely ) no big deal.
I have run little bike clinics for kiddos in public housing showing them how to maintain bikes like these. It’s a big deal for kids — poor kids — to know their hands have the power to make their cheap bikes work.
Just don’t think you will get it into good enough shape for Boston – Montreal – Boston. It’s not that kind of bike.
Take off that stupid kickstand.
daking999 on
I find fixing broken things extremely satisfying. Doing this sort of thing is one of the only reasons I would like a house with a garage instead of living in an apartment.
Does the suspension have any movement in it? If not then switching out for some rigid forks would save quite a bit of weight (if you can find some on another old free but even more broken bike!)
MagicManTX86 on
Looks like a Trek 820 we used to own. And this is the cheap copy of it.
12 Comments
Let’s assume the hours I will put to this are part of education, I want to get familiar with simple 1990s bikes as training for my more expensive modern bike.
I bought a set of new V-brakes including cables from AliExpress on the singles day sale to replace. This is the only purchase I have made so far in anticipation.
Bottom bracket seems gone, I may take it to a community open workshop because I am not going to buy a bottom bracket tool for this bike only, and if possible I will try to clean and restore it.
The saddle is going to the rubbish because it has mould on it (bike may have been stored outside).
Do you think the bike is worth saving? I can use it to more around, go shopping, etc, and probably nobody will want to steal it anyway even if I leave it hours or days outside.
Worth it economically, probably not.
Worth it gaining experience and teaching yourself some skill, yeah why not. It’s up to you how much you want to invest into that.
Will the bike be a good learning experience? Yes
Will you recoup your money you spend on parts? Nope.
Fix it up and donate it to someone in need and be grateful for what you learned.
You ask if this bike is ‘worth it’… That’s very vague. This bike was never pricey and won’t be worth much even when restored perfectly. If you only want to learn and ride it, sure. Practice and the satisfaction of a siccessfully restored bike is worth a lot!
Regarding your purchases: the v brakes that were installed are actually decent and probably better than 90 percent of the stuff you can buy at Ali express.
The things mos bikes need replaced are cables, cable housings, brake pads, chains (maybe chainrings and cassette) and tires. Most of the other stuff is often repairable/cleanable/derustable and regreasable.
The bottom bracket probably is beyond you in the moment so visiting a bike cooperative or your l.b.s. is the way to go there.
Go to youtube and try to take care of the bike component by component with the help of tutorials. Parktools for example have good tutorials. Bike coops are also often a great place to learn.
Good luck and have fun! An update when you’re done would be nice 🙂
I’ve restored two similar bikes from somewhere around 2010.
I spent a good amount of money and time, learned some stuff which is transferable to newer bikes, cursed A LOT and ended up with two old bikes looking new which nobody wants to ride.
nope. you will spend more on parts than you would on a newer, better bike. a lot of the parts on that bike do not exist on newer and better bikes, so the knowledge you gain will only be valuable for restoring more bikes like that one. and assuming you do a great job and get it all perfectly restored, you’re still going to end up with what is not a very nice bike.
learning about square-taper bottom brackets, riveted chainrings, quill stems, old suntour coil forks, and v-brakes is not a great starting place.
this is a great bike to learn the basics on: run new shifting and brake cables, learn that theyre different from each other for a reason, same with housing. learn how to correctly use crank pullers without stripping the threads. learn how to replace a cassette and use a chain whip tool. bust open the hubs and learn how to rebuild and repack them. learn all those things on a free bike. who cares if you fuck it up.
It’s not a very good bike, and won’t be even when you’ve finished. There are similar era bikes that will be nice to use and look at when you’re done. You can probably get them for free!
It’s not a great bike. It might even be termed a bicycle shaped object. I would leave it back.
There are plenty of top quality bikes available for very little.
In MTB 26 inch was standard wheel size. Now it’s 29 inch. There are great quality 26 and 27.5 inch varieties which nobody wants. So you can pick up a quality bike for very little.
In road biking the market has moved to disc brakes. Again there are plenty of great quality rim brake bikes being sold cheaply because they are not fashionable.
It’s difficult to learn anything on bikes with cheap components. Even when new they never work well.
Yes, great bike for wrenching away on as a beginner. Everything’s visible. It’s probably got some things wrong that you can actually fix. And, if you wreck something ( unlikely ) no big deal.
I have run little bike clinics for kiddos in public housing showing them how to maintain bikes like these. It’s a big deal for kids — poor kids — to know their hands have the power to make their cheap bikes work.
Just don’t think you will get it into good enough shape for Boston – Montreal – Boston. It’s not that kind of bike.
Take off that stupid kickstand.
I find fixing broken things extremely satisfying. Doing this sort of thing is one of the only reasons I would like a house with a garage instead of living in an apartment.
Does the suspension have any movement in it? If not then switching out for some rigid forks would save quite a bit of weight (if you can find some on another old free but even more broken bike!)
Looks like a Trek 820 we used to own. And this is the cheap copy of it.