So you've got your shiny new bike and you've ridden it all over the place. You've been up and down and round and back home. Your bike has definately had a bit of hammer and will need support in the way of maintenance and regular upkeep to ensure you can go many miles further together.
Chain Reaction
Depending on how long you've ridden your bike for and where you store your bike day-to-day, you can work out how much maintenance you need to give your chain to ensure that your drivetrain will continue to work effectively.
If you ride your bike a lot, over great distances, it will be important to keep your chain well lubricated to keep the wear on the bike components down. There are many different lubes out there for this purpose but there is a runaway favourite of mine which is Finish Line Teflon Lube http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=317 . This lubricant is for use really only in the dry conditions and this may be impractical in old blighty so there's also a wet conditions equivalent: http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=1041 and at roughly 3 quid a pop, it's not gonna break the bank.
Working at the.... Bike.... wash (Seamless :D)
As important as it is to keep your chain in good condition, it is also a good idea to keep your bike relatively clean as this will prevent transfer of muck to you from the bike. A good fluid for this is the Muc Off Nano Tech bike cleaner (£5.99) : http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=520 . I really like this product because it's a no gimmicks fluid with a spray bottle container. It's really just a point and shoot system which works great if, like me, you have a busy life and just want to keep your bike in good working order.
Stop!!
On the more mechanical / physical side of bike maintenance, it's important to keep an eye on your tyres and brake pads. I'll deal with brake pads first as they're more likely to go before your tyres do ( again, like so much in this article, it depends on the type and frequency of the riding that you do). Brake pads are the traditional way to stop a bike and there are specific types of brake pads for different bikes. Mountain bikes generally have longer brake pads and road bikes have smaller pads mounted in a side-pull fashion. These can be picked up at Halfords or from Chain Reaction Cycles for little money and especially with CRC, there is a massive selection to choose from.
Tyres, again vary depending on the bike and type of riding you do. If you do a lot of mountain biking then slick tyres are not for you. Likewise, a knobby tyre on a road bike lends the it to more cyclo-cross type riding rather than a fast morning commute into the City. A good thing to watch out for with the commuter tyre is whether it has kevlar in it. Kevlar in this application is the same stuff used in bullet proof vests and will go a long way to help protect you from punctures.
Showing posts with label DIY. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DIY. Show all posts
Wednesday, 20 July 2011
Sunday, 17 July 2011
Ready Steady Cook
Hours slaving away in the kitchen to produce a small dish of inedible rubbish, burnt hands and lots of waste and cleaning to take care of afterward. Laughing at your pitiful efforts and crying at the poor quality 'food' you've created. Cooking does come with some horror stories but it need not be like this. In this article, there are a few tips and tricks to getting your skills fast tracked to Masterchef finalist levels.
Fail to Prepare, Prepare to Fail.
The most important thing to remember when attmepting to cook something is to ensure you have ready all the things you will need to cook your delicious meal. This means having the chicken breasts defrosted or the pork chops bought and in the fridge ready. It also means having the spices and flavourings ready too. Don't be tempted to swap one thing that you do have for the spice that you don't have but the recipe specifies. As you go through your cooking career,
you will start to amass a great number of spices and flavourings that you can use. So it will enable you to experiment more and more as more combinations of flavours are at your disposal.
Read your Recipe
To ensure that you get your food exactly how you want it, it is a good idea to invest in a cooking timer or use the timer on your watch. It is important to ensure that you have a good sense of the amount of time your food has been cooking for as it's not nice to eat runny eggs or burnt steak. This simple device will help you time your cooking to perfection. As you start out with the cooking, it is a good idea to follow the times in the recipe but as you progress and develop a sense of how long food takes to cook, you can rely on the timer less and just cook as if it were natural.
Cleaning
The dreaded pots and pans put a lot of people off from cooking. But it shouldn't be feared. After each step of your cooking, simply pop the dirty equipment in the sink to soak so food doesn't dry onto it. The dried on food is difficult to and needs a lot of effort to remove so get those dishes in soak as soon as you can. The other benefit of cleaning as you go is that there isn't a massive heap of stuff to clean when your potato bake/ beef wellington/ pasta bake. Remembering this will make your life easier. Don't be afraid to get your hands 'dirty' either, many recipes that involve marinated meat or baking require that you get your hands involved and manipulate the food yourself. This is a close relationship with food that has been severed in recent times with the growth of sterile boxed food that is simply microwaved for convenience.
Good Luck
Once you've picked your recipe, gathered the ingredients and set the timers, dive in!! Don't be afraid to try any dish you want to because the worst that can happen is burned food and the best thing; tasty dishes all round. If at first you go wrong, don't worry, practise makes perfect and as you go through your favourite recipes, you will find that you can cook them better and better. Once you have this confidence, you can start tweaking the food and cook what your heart desires, changing spices and meats and accompaniments here, there and everywhere.
Fail to Prepare, Prepare to Fail.
The most important thing to remember when attmepting to cook something is to ensure you have ready all the things you will need to cook your delicious meal. This means having the chicken breasts defrosted or the pork chops bought and in the fridge ready. It also means having the spices and flavourings ready too. Don't be tempted to swap one thing that you do have for the spice that you don't have but the recipe specifies. As you go through your cooking career,
you will start to amass a great number of spices and flavourings that you can use. So it will enable you to experiment more and more as more combinations of flavours are at your disposal.
Read your Recipe
To ensure that you get your food exactly how you want it, it is a good idea to invest in a cooking timer or use the timer on your watch. It is important to ensure that you have a good sense of the amount of time your food has been cooking for as it's not nice to eat runny eggs or burnt steak. This simple device will help you time your cooking to perfection. As you start out with the cooking, it is a good idea to follow the times in the recipe but as you progress and develop a sense of how long food takes to cook, you can rely on the timer less and just cook as if it were natural.
Cleaning
The dreaded pots and pans put a lot of people off from cooking. But it shouldn't be feared. After each step of your cooking, simply pop the dirty equipment in the sink to soak so food doesn't dry onto it. The dried on food is difficult to and needs a lot of effort to remove so get those dishes in soak as soon as you can. The other benefit of cleaning as you go is that there isn't a massive heap of stuff to clean when your potato bake/ beef wellington/ pasta bake. Remembering this will make your life easier. Don't be afraid to get your hands 'dirty' either, many recipes that involve marinated meat or baking require that you get your hands involved and manipulate the food yourself. This is a close relationship with food that has been severed in recent times with the growth of sterile boxed food that is simply microwaved for convenience.
Good Luck
Once you've picked your recipe, gathered the ingredients and set the timers, dive in!! Don't be afraid to try any dish you want to because the worst that can happen is burned food and the best thing; tasty dishes all round. If at first you go wrong, don't worry, practise makes perfect and as you go through your favourite recipes, you will find that you can cook them better and better. Once you have this confidence, you can start tweaking the food and cook what your heart desires, changing spices and meats and accompaniments here, there and everywhere.
Friday, 15 July 2011
Make your own candles
I've tried my hand at making candles and have decided to scale up the operation so that I can make some for family and friends. I realised some time ago that the candles that you can buy at the shops are generally quite pricey despite only being very simple. Also, they might only stock certain colours / fragrances and typically, the ones you want are the most expensive. C'est la vie right?
Surprise
Wrong!! You can circumvent this problem by simply making your own candles. I made some prototype candles using 50% used, cleaned and filtered cooking fat and 50% wax for stability. I added some fragrance and their colour is a good clean cream / off-white ivory colour and they look great. Not only does it give you something to add to your interior decor but it also gives a useful outlet for cooking fats and oils which avoids putting them down the sink and helps avoids slow drainage problems.
Cleaning
I made the candles after I had saved the fat from cooking meats for about 2 months. This got me about 1 litre of fats which had settled into many layers. I heated this up with the microwave to melt it. I then poured it into a plastic bottle and added very hot water. The purpose of the water is to wash the fat. Just as washing dirty clothes with water serves to give clean laundry, washing fat with water cleans it, taking both the little burnt bits and the smell of the food with it, giving clean, non-scented fat.
The beauty of this method is that the darkened, dirty water sits below the fat which becomes creamy white after a few washes. The dirty water and solids at the bottom of the bottle can be removed by inverting the bottle before opening the lid and letting the water out. Washing three times generally gets the fat as clean as it's going to get.
Create your ideal candle
This leads you on to the next step: mixing with wax then creating your candles. To do this, add your fat to a pan (it should be a semi-viscous liquid now, after taking the washing water away and cleaning it up). Then add your wax of choice (this can come from any wax source, old candles or new candle wax works just as well). Be sure to cut up the wax before adding to pan to aid the speed of the melting process. Once the wax is melted into the fat and the solution is totally liquid, take the pan off the heat and leave to one side for a moment. Now is the time to add any scents (essential oils work best ~5ml per 100g) or dyes (you may want to get 'real' candle dyes as other
pigments may create harmful when burned.
Construct your candle
Now take an clean old glass jar (an old Ragu jar washed out with warm soapy water to remove the stickers will do) and using superglue, glue a piece of string or a sliver of cotton material to the bottom of your jar. This will be your candle wick. Tie the end of the wick to a pen/ pencil
and make sure the wick is central in the jar ( if the flame diverts toward the side of the jar, it could cause the glass to crack. Now carefully pour your wax/fats into the jar.
Leave your set up as it is in a cool place and don't disturb it. The wax will set in the jar and all you have to do it trim your wick to about one centimetre in length and then you have a nice new candle.
Surprise
Wrong!! You can circumvent this problem by simply making your own candles. I made some prototype candles using 50% used, cleaned and filtered cooking fat and 50% wax for stability. I added some fragrance and their colour is a good clean cream / off-white ivory colour and they look great. Not only does it give you something to add to your interior decor but it also gives a useful outlet for cooking fats and oils which avoids putting them down the sink and helps avoids slow drainage problems.
Cleaning
I made the candles after I had saved the fat from cooking meats for about 2 months. This got me about 1 litre of fats which had settled into many layers. I heated this up with the microwave to melt it. I then poured it into a plastic bottle and added very hot water. The purpose of the water is to wash the fat. Just as washing dirty clothes with water serves to give clean laundry, washing fat with water cleans it, taking both the little burnt bits and the smell of the food with it, giving clean, non-scented fat.
The beauty of this method is that the darkened, dirty water sits below the fat which becomes creamy white after a few washes. The dirty water and solids at the bottom of the bottle can be removed by inverting the bottle before opening the lid and letting the water out. Washing three times generally gets the fat as clean as it's going to get.
Create your ideal candle
This leads you on to the next step: mixing with wax then creating your candles. To do this, add your fat to a pan (it should be a semi-viscous liquid now, after taking the washing water away and cleaning it up). Then add your wax of choice (this can come from any wax source, old candles or new candle wax works just as well). Be sure to cut up the wax before adding to pan to aid the speed of the melting process. Once the wax is melted into the fat and the solution is totally liquid, take the pan off the heat and leave to one side for a moment. Now is the time to add any scents (essential oils work best ~5ml per 100g) or dyes (you may want to get 'real' candle dyes as other
pigments may create harmful when burned.
Construct your candle
Now take an clean old glass jar (an old Ragu jar washed out with warm soapy water to remove the stickers will do) and using superglue, glue a piece of string or a sliver of cotton material to the bottom of your jar. This will be your candle wick. Tie the end of the wick to a pen/ pencil
and make sure the wick is central in the jar ( if the flame diverts toward the side of the jar, it could cause the glass to crack. Now carefully pour your wax/fats into the jar.
Leave your set up as it is in a cool place and don't disturb it. The wax will set in the jar and all you have to do it trim your wick to about one centimetre in length and then you have a nice new candle.
Tuesday, 12 July 2011
Pimp your ride
It's summer time and the weather is perfect for doing anything. Riding your bike for example. But your bike is rusty and ancient. Summer time is also good for painting as the dry conditions allow you to air dry things quickly outside without fear of water spots. So you're bored with your bike and want something a bit different? Well you could follow the example of many people who are staying one step ahead in cycling chic and buying hipster fixed gear bikes. You could follow the examples put forward in Patrick Kingsley's blog, start shopping round the independant cycle manufacturers in London for a sharp, garish two wheeler and look the height of hipster bike fashion. http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/jun/09/cycling-grand-designs-custom-built?INTCMP=SRCH.
Cost
However, like clothes fashion, it's not a cheap thing. So if you're wanting that custard and rhubarb coloured ride but don't want to pay £££ for it then read on. This post will tell you how to get the bike your heart desires on budget by stripping down your old bike or a frame you have spare and painting it to look the coolest thing screaming through the streets. All this can be accomplished for a fraction of the price.
First and foremost, you'll need access to tools. There aren't many, simply a few sets of wrenches, pliers for uncooperative components and plently of marked bags so you can find all the bits that come off the bike after painting
Dissassembly
Use your tools to disconnect all the systems from the bike, that means saddle, gears, handlebars, brakes; the lot. As you remove components, carefully put each set of components and associated nuts and bolts into their respective bags and seal them to avoid their loss. Also, remove the wheels to make the frame easier to work with.
Pre-paint Prep
To get a decent paint job, make sure that you have the right kit to begin with. You'll need:
Sandpaper / aka glasspaper - various grades coarse to fine (200 grit to 800 grit with a few grades in between to give your steed a full deep colour)
paint stripper
thick waterproof gloves
dustmask - to avoid breathing in paint fumes and paint dust
various paints - White primer to give an even base coat
Any colour spray paint you want
clear laquer spray ( to protect your nice new colour scheme)
Masking tape (to a specific colour scheme onto your frame)
newspaper (to cover any great areas of the bike you don't want to be sprayed)
cardboard (to protect the surroundings from spraying)
Firstly, sand your frame and apply paint stripper. Do this in a well ventilated area and be careful with the paint stripper as if it can remove paint from a bike, it's liable to do worse to you. I recommend Nitromors, available from most DIY shops. Apply with a sponge / rag and with gloves applied. Use till the original colour is dulled and the surface of the frame is roughed up so the paint will stick.
Now wash the frame with soapy water to remove any dust and remaining paint stripper. Allow to dry. Get your primer and give the frame 2 / 3 good thorough coats with sanding with the coarse sand paper and washing in between to ensure the primer is sticking and giving good cover. I got my spray paints from
Once priming is done, sand and wash the frame again to give a surface for painting with the top coat. Apply your top coat in about 4/5 layers with sanding in ever finer grades of sandpaper, finishing with 800 grit 3(the finest grade). After this stage, your bike should have a deep rich colour and any semblance of the original colour should be a distant memory.
To finish the job, use a couple of coats of clear laquer to cover the bike in a thick, scratch resistant coating to prevent your 'new' bike from being scratched. Be warned that all of the spraying stages should be performed in a well ventilated area to avoid the toxic effects from the spray paint propellant.
All Done
Afterward, reassamble your bike and ride around in style on your garish new ride. Should be able to accomplish this for less than £60.However, if this is too much effort for you and the garish colours aren't your thing, send your frame off to a chromers and they'll coat your frame in chrome for ~£250-300 http://www.ashfordchroming.com/get-chroming-prices
Good luck. Send in your photos and comments.
Cost
However, like clothes fashion, it's not a cheap thing. So if you're wanting that custard and rhubarb coloured ride but don't want to pay £££ for it then read on. This post will tell you how to get the bike your heart desires on budget by stripping down your old bike or a frame you have spare and painting it to look the coolest thing screaming through the streets. All this can be accomplished for a fraction of the price.
First and foremost, you'll need access to tools. There aren't many, simply a few sets of wrenches, pliers for uncooperative components and plently of marked bags so you can find all the bits that come off the bike after painting
Dissassembly
Use your tools to disconnect all the systems from the bike, that means saddle, gears, handlebars, brakes; the lot. As you remove components, carefully put each set of components and associated nuts and bolts into their respective bags and seal them to avoid their loss. Also, remove the wheels to make the frame easier to work with.
Pre-paint Prep
To get a decent paint job, make sure that you have the right kit to begin with. You'll need:
Sandpaper / aka glasspaper - various grades coarse to fine (200 grit to 800 grit with a few grades in between to give your steed a full deep colour)
paint stripper
thick waterproof gloves
dustmask - to avoid breathing in paint fumes and paint dust
various paints - White primer to give an even base coat
Any colour spray paint you want
clear laquer spray ( to protect your nice new colour scheme)
Masking tape (to a specific colour scheme onto your frame)
newspaper (to cover any great areas of the bike you don't want to be sprayed)
cardboard (to protect the surroundings from spraying)
Firstly, sand your frame and apply paint stripper. Do this in a well ventilated area and be careful with the paint stripper as if it can remove paint from a bike, it's liable to do worse to you. I recommend Nitromors, available from most DIY shops. Apply with a sponge / rag and with gloves applied. Use till the original colour is dulled and the surface of the frame is roughed up so the paint will stick.
Now wash the frame with soapy water to remove any dust and remaining paint stripper. Allow to dry. Get your primer and give the frame 2 / 3 good thorough coats with sanding with the coarse sand paper and washing in between to ensure the primer is sticking and giving good cover. I got my spray paints from
Once priming is done, sand and wash the frame again to give a surface for painting with the top coat. Apply your top coat in about 4/5 layers with sanding in ever finer grades of sandpaper, finishing with 800 grit 3(the finest grade). After this stage, your bike should have a deep rich colour and any semblance of the original colour should be a distant memory.
To finish the job, use a couple of coats of clear laquer to cover the bike in a thick, scratch resistant coating to prevent your 'new' bike from being scratched. Be warned that all of the spraying stages should be performed in a well ventilated area to avoid the toxic effects from the spray paint propellant.
All Done
Afterward, reassamble your bike and ride around in style on your garish new ride. Should be able to accomplish this for less than £60.However, if this is too much effort for you and the garish colours aren't your thing, send your frame off to a chromers and they'll coat your frame in chrome for ~£250-300 http://www.ashfordchroming.com/get-chroming-prices
Good luck. Send in your photos and comments.
Thursday, 7 July 2011
Puncture repair guide (with tips!!)
Hisssssssssssss!! The angry sound of a puncture. Don't let it ruin your ride and don't waste money on a guy from Halfords to change your inner tube either. In this blog article, we'll be looking at puncture repair for bike inner tubes: the motivation, some tips and general installation instruction.
Hiss Bang Groan
Firstly, you need to identify the type of puncture you've got and this will allow you to tailor you approach to the repair of the puncture. A low hissing sound implies a snakebite or pinch puncture. This is a puncture which will slowly bleed out the air from your tyre and will have two small holes in the inneer tube. This is more minor damage and you may even be able to
ride home on such a puncture so you can fix it there more easily. A fast, loud bang is a rupture and is more serious. It implies a blowout of your tyre and may mean that you can't fix the puncture by the roadside.
Getting started
So you've identified your puncture and which wheel of your bike is afflicted. What now? Well,
firstly, you want a set of spoons, also known as tyre levers (not the eating iron variety). These should ideally made of tough plastic and are available from online stores such as Chain Reaction Cycles and Ribble cycles. Chain Reaction has free delivery on all purchases so it's worth giving them a look.
Use the more spoon-like end of the tyre lever to lift the rim of the tyre over the wheel rim. You may want to use 3 tyre levers for this to lift the tyre off the rim all the way round one side of the wheel.
Now pull out the inner tube. It's as the name suggests, a rubber tube, usually black and it sits under the tyre in the wheel rim. If you have a minipump to hand, pump some air into the inner tube and listen all around the tube for a hissing if you cannot already see the puncture. Many pinpoint punctures are very difficult to see so hearing and the feel of the airflow against the finger tips can help you locate the puncture.
After finding the puncture, use a puncture repair kit. My favourite at the moment is the Rema TIP TOP TT04 Sport mini puncture repair kit (~£3.50 Chain Reaction Cycles). It comes with little patches for little punctures and a couple of larger patches to cover more substantial damage. It also comes with some vulcanising solution (rubber glue) and a piece of sandpaper to help adhesion between the patch and the tube.
following the instructions in the package, lightly sand the tube to rough up the surface to help the patch stick. apply a blob of vulcanising solution. Then apply the patch and hold strongly for about 5 minutes while the glue sets.
Now put a little air into the tube to check for additional punctures. If there are none, seat the inner tube back into the tyre, making sure to seat the air inlet pokes through the hole in the rim. Now, using your hands, lift the rim of the tyre back over the rim of the wheel. Don't be tempted to use the tyre levers to lift the tyre back into place as this risks pinching the inner tube and ruining all your hard work as you'll need to repeat the above steps. Don't worry if it takes a while or you think you're doing it wrong. This is the most difficult part of the repair as anyone aside from a repair shop man will probably not have the grip strength needed to do it all in one go. Just take your time and make sure you don't catch the tube between the rim and the tyre as
more damage will ensue.
After all that, good luck. Let me know if there's anything I missed :)
Hiss Bang Groan
Firstly, you need to identify the type of puncture you've got and this will allow you to tailor you approach to the repair of the puncture. A low hissing sound implies a snakebite or pinch puncture. This is a puncture which will slowly bleed out the air from your tyre and will have two small holes in the inneer tube. This is more minor damage and you may even be able to
ride home on such a puncture so you can fix it there more easily. A fast, loud bang is a rupture and is more serious. It implies a blowout of your tyre and may mean that you can't fix the puncture by the roadside.
Getting started
So you've identified your puncture and which wheel of your bike is afflicted. What now? Well,
firstly, you want a set of spoons, also known as tyre levers (not the eating iron variety). These should ideally made of tough plastic and are available from online stores such as Chain Reaction Cycles and Ribble cycles. Chain Reaction has free delivery on all purchases so it's worth giving them a look.
Use the more spoon-like end of the tyre lever to lift the rim of the tyre over the wheel rim. You may want to use 3 tyre levers for this to lift the tyre off the rim all the way round one side of the wheel.
Now pull out the inner tube. It's as the name suggests, a rubber tube, usually black and it sits under the tyre in the wheel rim. If you have a minipump to hand, pump some air into the inner tube and listen all around the tube for a hissing if you cannot already see the puncture. Many pinpoint punctures are very difficult to see so hearing and the feel of the airflow against the finger tips can help you locate the puncture.
After finding the puncture, use a puncture repair kit. My favourite at the moment is the Rema TIP TOP TT04 Sport mini puncture repair kit (~£3.50 Chain Reaction Cycles). It comes with little patches for little punctures and a couple of larger patches to cover more substantial damage. It also comes with some vulcanising solution (rubber glue) and a piece of sandpaper to help adhesion between the patch and the tube.
following the instructions in the package, lightly sand the tube to rough up the surface to help the patch stick. apply a blob of vulcanising solution. Then apply the patch and hold strongly for about 5 minutes while the glue sets.
Now put a little air into the tube to check for additional punctures. If there are none, seat the inner tube back into the tyre, making sure to seat the air inlet pokes through the hole in the rim. Now, using your hands, lift the rim of the tyre back over the rim of the wheel. Don't be tempted to use the tyre levers to lift the tyre back into place as this risks pinching the inner tube and ruining all your hard work as you'll need to repeat the above steps. Don't worry if it takes a while or you think you're doing it wrong. This is the most difficult part of the repair as anyone aside from a repair shop man will probably not have the grip strength needed to do it all in one go. Just take your time and make sure you don't catch the tube between the rim and the tyre as
more damage will ensue.
After all that, good luck. Let me know if there's anything I missed :)
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