My office is considering getting Dr Bike in for a bike maintenance session. Does anyone have experience of Dr Bike? Will it help novices with the mysteries of brake adjustment, indexing etc?
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure
Dr Bike
(8 posts)-
Posted 11 years ago #
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Never been to one but my local bike service guy is very good and does these Dr Bike services in Kirkaldy. I expect they are just local bike mechs employed for their time by Sustrans/council?
Posted 11 years ago # -
I've been to a couple. Can be a bit hit or miss to be honest as they are usually very busy so you get a quick brake check, BB check, chain stretch and tyre pressure and maybe a bit of gear indexing if you're having issues shifting. I've had issues afterwards though when the indexing wasn't right and I ended up with much more chain rub than i did before I started. It's not really for anything serious but will let you know if there are any bigger issues that you should get properly investigated.
They're usually too busy to show you how it's done but will do it for you. You can of course stand and watch/ask questions but be prepared to face lots of tuts as you take up all the time.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Of course "Dr. Bike" is a very generic term covering 'anyone' who turns up to fix bikes.
The Bike Station does a lot of 'public' ones - Meadows, Fiveways, bits of the university etc.
They used to do 'employers' and may still do if paid for.
"Will it help novices with the mysteries of brake adjustment, indexing etc?"
I would hope any mechanic would be able/willing to do that - especially if they were told in advance that was expected.
Some 'Dr. Bike at employers' sessions have just been 'a lot of bikes to check over' without the owners being present, so it depends what is wanted/specified.
There are various 'mobile mechanics'/shops that will do 'Dr. Bike'.
Some here -
http://edinburghcycleshops.wordpress.com/repairs
Hart's used to be a mobile service but now has a shop don't know if they are still 'mobile' too.
Posted 11 years ago # -
I have had several negative experiences of the Bike Station's Dr Bike service and no positive ones.
Good servicing experience from BG at Porty, Eastside at Abbeyhill and the Bicycle Works off the meadows.
Posted 11 years ago # -
When distributing POP leaflets I hung around with a Dr Bike session on the meadows. I think they were very good at explaining what needed doing and in almost every case, explained what the problem was and their options for fixing it.
I'm sure given more time with each bike they would have been able to me more educational.
Although indexing gears etc seems straightforward, getting a random old bike and trying to set it up can be opening a can of worms - particularly if for example the frame itself is damaged in some way
Posted 11 years ago # -
I've organised a lot of 'Dr Bike' events over the last few years, from the ten minute 'safety check' to maintenance sessions for beginners.
In my experience I would advertise them more as a safety check and minor tune-up, rather than a service. But that depends how many you're catering for, and how much time you're prepared to pay for. In ten minutes you can expect to have a check of brakes, gears, wheels, tyres, QRs and headset, plus a bit of tweaking of adjusters and maybe a realigned derailleur.
It is a good idea to have notional time slots so that the owner of each bike—who is probably busy having meetings and stuff—can be present while the mechanic does the checks and minor tuning-up. Otherwise it wastes time if for every bike the mechanic has to write out a little note of anything needing done and deal with people who might've put their name down in advance or people who turn up on spec, while remembering what the last bike needed done in order to write the next note. That all depends how you decide to organise it.
Better still, especially if it's a large organisation where cycling is fairly popular, have someone on hand to help manage both the queue of people and the queue of bikes, since there's often only so much space to leave them, and they tend to be left any old how. That leaves the mechanic(s) free to mechanick.
Posted 11 years ago # -
We had a great dr bike session at our work a couple of years ago. Matt I think and another great guy who has pals with Mr G from EBC?
They came to our work and serviced our bikes. Maybe half a dozen. I bought new brake pads but my pal hadn't and they stuck new ones on for nothing. Those were the days.
Subsequently they were more reluctant to be brilliant. Possibly due to funding issues.
Posted 11 years ago #
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