Open for everyone, including kids and non-members
Time to get your bike fit for the winter! Have you been meaning to tune up your bike? Got one sitting in the shed and it needs something to be road-worthy?
Come! Bring your bike and any necessary spares and let’s get them all fixed up together and have some repair fun!
Date: Wed, Dec 7th, 2022
Time: 7:00PM - 9:00PM (ish)
^ ditto, nice idea Clem.
If anyone would like advice on what spares specifically they may need, feel free to drop me a line.
Edit- I have loads of cables at home (I’m a pro bike mechanic), would it be useful to the space for me to donate a few? Don’t want to crowd things up, but perhaps expanding the bike repair inventory is something that many members could find handy? Also I often have access to used chains, wheels, seatposts, cogs, etc., so if they’d be of use to anyone, as above just message me or come over and chat if you see me.
I’m building a cargo bike frame from recycled bikes so I’m all in for more parts, knowledge and initiative in makers space 
Cool thanks @hernehillier - let’s have a look through what we currently have and see where there may be gaps or spares that would make sense to stock!
Cheers,
Andy
Cool. I had a look today, there’s quite a few tools. There’s no tool I’d say is crucially missing for most bike repairs to be honest.
Off the top of my head, some things that might be handy and I couldn’t locate:
-MTB and road brake cables, and housing. Maybe a set or two for urgent weekend or nighttime repairs when shops are shut?
-Gear cables and housing. As above.
-Couple of thin nitrile gloves for greasy goods.
-Torque wrench(s) especially for working with carbon parts. 2-20ish Nm, and less important one going up to 65Nm for installing bottom bracket bearings, cranksets and crank arms.
-Cone or other thin wrenches for adjusting axle bearings. 13-17mm are the most used, need two of each (Halford’s Bike Hut brand sell a good, cheap set approx. £11). The Space has a 15mm pedal wrench and I think a couple larger thin wrenches.
-Derailleur hanger repair tool. Uncommonly used outside a bike repair shop, but I’ve been drawing up plans to fabricate one so perhaps we could have that eventually.
-Wheel building station, which is mainly two vertical arms to hold a wheel stable while it spins. Definitely not a necessity but it might be cool to run a wheel building workshop one day, for folks to learn to build and repair their own spoked wheels?
-Grease. I expect there’s some somewhere. Best grease for non-high-performance cycle hubs is calcium marine grease (caveat emptor: unless manufacturer says otherwise), cheap as chips.
-Do the air compressors have Schrader or presta valve adapters? If not that would be handy.
-Breaker bar or long 1.5-2” pipe, for leverage on bottom brackets and stubborn parts.
-Bashing block, chunk of wood to hit with a hammer to protect finish on bike parts.
Looks like there’s a lot of expertise here. Looking forward to meeting you all.
Maybe we can use the day to go through stuff and discuss how we could organise that corner.
Just food for thought: If we establish the bike repair area, we could have a box for left-behind parts waiting for a new owner. That way we wouldn’t invest in consumables.
For sure some additional tools would be great to have, especially the torque wrench would not just be used for bike repair. There are some of the tools you listed in the place, but not specifically allocated to the bikes.
Lastly, I’d love a wheel building workshop. That’s beyond my skills, but if you show me I’ll be all up for it.
cheers
Clem
Sounds great- we have a wheel stand already, unless you are referring to something else?
Is Bicycle repair/maintenance not something we could open up to outside members like textiles and electronics night? I often walk past bike repair “popups” and they’re full of people and this seems like something that would draw more people to the space, especially in the surrounding community? Unless this is of course already the case, in which case, can we put that in the writeup?
Yes! By virtue of being in the Events calendar it shows up for everyone including non-members… but we should probably update the text to reflect this!
Yep meant a wheel stand. Didn’t spot it, I’ll have a better look tonight. Cheers !
This sounds great… Haven’t touched my bike in months and needs some love. Specially because it would be great to use it to get to the Makerspace!
Unfortunately I can’t make it next Wednesday - Is this something you do on a regular basis?
Thank you!
This one is not for a few weeks… Dec 7- we try to do them every few months!
Oh yes I was referring to that Wednesday sorry! Haha time to go to sleep!
I will hopefully fix it before the next one then but will see 
Thanks Andy
On the last event my partner left parktool bicycle stand at slms, he said he’s happy for people to use it, but might take it back at a random time. It’s been there for months now, since the repair meet up Andy organised. I’d thought slms might want to get one or two extra just in case? It’s much easier to fix bikes when high up.
This is a great initiative - me and my two boys would love to bring our bikes. They are quite rusty and we have issues with gears/breaks. We could probably bring them.over on the train from Shortlands.
Thanks for arranging this event.
Grace
A bit niche but is there an autoclave/ultrasonic cleaner at the space, say 5-8L volume, for cleaning parts?
Hi, no at the moment we don’t have one. But I have heard from others that they would also be interested in having one at the space.
Thanks Julia. 
