It wasn’t until Covid lockdowns that I became a regular bike rider, but it has become one of the joys of my life. Nothing melts away a stressful day like whizzing down a hill; not having to think about petrol prices, one-way streets or parking spots does wonders for my mood.
When it came to maintenance, though, my attitude was decidedly timid. If something worked, that was good enough for me – how it did so was simply none of my business. Strange noises and glitches were things I figured would either go away on their own or deteriorate into something I’d hand off to an expert. I’m not proud to admit I’ve walked my bike half an hour to a bike shop to fix a puncture more than once; my chain was perpetually caked in gunk because I thought even looking at it the wrong way might break something.
When a nasty stack wrote my bike off, I needed something cheap to take its place. For a cool $50 I picked up a late-70s Malvern Star – it had rust spots and crumbling tyres, but it rode like a dream and I instantly fell in love. Maybe it was how little money I’d spent, or its no-frills, low-tech parts, but I suddenly felt the urge to tinker.
Guided by little more than YouTube tutorials and exasperated phone calls to my dad, I installed new handlebars and brakes, a new chain, a rear rack and a front basket, all with second-hand parts rummaged from the bins at my local community bike co-op. I was hooked; the ability to figure out how each part informs the whole, to diagnose a problem myself and fix it for next to no money, generated a sense of self-satisfaction powerful enough to get me up a medium-sized hill.
Last summer I got even more ambitious; wanting a project to get stuck into without dismantling my main commuter, I bought an old steel frame and built it up from scratch, spray-can paint job and all. Making a working machine out of nothing is intensely gratifying, and I learned a lot – not least that when it comes to old bikes, parts are a lot less interchangeable than they might look.
It turns out taking off parts, scrubbing off the rust and road grime, then putting them back on is a highly relaxing and enjoyable way to spend an afternoon. When most of my week is spent looking at words on a screen, it feels meditative to occupy my hands with something practical. I’m still very much a novice and prone to biting off more than I can chew, but learning I’m capable of building and fixing something has increased my confidence in my own abilities across the board. I find myself missing my bike sessions when I’m too busy or the weather is bad – plus, grubby fingers are a great way to avoid doomscrolling.
Even when I am on my phone, I’m scrolling differently. There’s a whole world of content dedicated to bike repair, from subreddits where people show off their clunkers and frankenbikes to detailed repair tutorials, laid-back ride-alongs and wordless ASMR-esque build videos. It’s a positive and easygoing corner of the internet that’s less about Lycra and millisecond gains than about keeping it cheap, chill and cheerful.
Of course, there have been plenty of occasions where I probably should have relied on my old philosophy of leaving well enough alone. An old bike can be easy enough to make rideable, but making that ride pleasurable can be fiendishly difficult – parts wear out, and replacing one thing can sometimes break another. But even that’s part of the joy of it – I know there’ll be another opportunity to dive back into the parts bin just around the corner.
