Hey everyone and welcome back to another Tuesday tip where in this video
I'm going to be talking about three different ways to easily check whether or not your headset is loose on your BMX bike
So obviously this video is geared a little bit more towards beginners and not those of us who are more
Experienced in working on our bikes and know what a loose headset feels like before we even test it
so
let's get into this quick one about three different ways that you can check to see whether or not your headset is loose the first
One is very simple and straightforward and you can do it
just sitting on your bike without needing anything other than
Flat ground to sit on I guess and what you do is you sit on your bike you turn your handlebars
90 degrees to the side as you can see that I'm doing here and you just rock your bike forward and
Backwards what you're looking for in testing whether or not your headset is loose
it's kind of just a general feeling of looseness and a
Feeling that things aren't quite as tight as they could be it kind of feels like you're hitting one
Stopping point and then moving the opposite direction and hitting another stopping point
well
You want to pay attention?
to with this method is that you have a little bit of wiggle room because of your tire and rim and
This isn't exactly the best way to do it
But if your headset is loose you 100% can tell from this method
Another method that you can use while sitting on your bike is to find something solid that you can lean your bike against like for
Example this garage door behind me and you'll pretty much do the exact same thing
So I'm gonna turn and face this way a little bit put the tire
Against the garage door and then I'm just gonna push
Forward and backward with the bike and I'm gonna pay special attention to my hands on the grips
because pushing forward and pulling backwards
With the hands on the grips is what's going to give you the feeling of looseness if your headset is loose
So we're going
Forward and backward and what we're looking for with this one is kind of the same thing that I talked about with the other
method in that we're feeling for a movement to one side and then a
in point and then a movement to the other side in a stopping point and
Realistically, this is something that you will learn with time and you will get a really really strong feeling towards so you will know without
a shadow of doubt that your headset is loose most of the time like I said before you even test it because you can just
Tell while you're riding
So just leaning against a solid object pushing forward in backwards
feeling for that general looseness in the stopping point on either side of your push and your pull and
the last method that I want to talk about for checking your headset is
what I think is the most definitive test because it is
So much more obvious when a headset is even just a little bit loose by using this method
Than either of the other ones that I've talked about. So with that what it is is flipping your bike upside down
Putting it down so that the bars are on the ground and your seat or your back tire is on
the ground and what we're going to do here is
Grab our Forks and just push back and forth
And as you can see here, there is a little bit of play due to the seat having cushion
But if our headset was loose here
We would immediately be able to tell and it's that exact same thing that I talked about before
where you're pushing and you're pulling and you feel a movement that
Starts and stops as you're pushing and pulling this way everything feels solid
Nothing feels like it's wiggling around and nothing just feels generally loose like we've talked about
so with that being said my
headset is tight on this bike but
if it wasn't what you would do is
simply loosen these side bolts on your stem and then tighten your cap just a little bit and
then tighten your side bolts back up and perform the test again and
A good way to test that you didn't tighten your headset too much
Is that once everything is tightened back up? You want to lift up your bike and spin your handlebars and if they can spin around?
Relatively easy without you feeling that
looseness when you do the headset test
Your headset isn't too tight and isn't too loose and it is right in the sweet spot
It's definitely something that we want to check regularly
especially if you feel like something is kind of not right while you're riding because
Chances are this is one of those things that could go unnoticed
And if we don't check it
People do say that if you have a loose headset and you ride on it long enough
You can oval eyes the head tube in your frame. And that means that instead of your head tube being a circle like this
It's an oval and it's oblong and longer on one side. Been the other and your circle bearings
Can't sit in there flush and tighten the way that they're supposed to
So basically you'll have a loose headset forever until you get a new frame and that's not something that we want
so like I said before this video is geared towards the beginners and those of us who might have just gotten a complete bike or
Are just learning about working on our bikes
Hopefully it helps you out and hopefully it prevents you from oval izing head tube on your frame
and with that being said that's gonna wrap up this video about the three easy ways to
Check whether or not your headset is loose on your BMX bike
Hope you guys learned something
If you did and enjoyed the video, let me know in the comments down below
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I come out with tips and tricks videos just like this one on a huge range of topics
On everything from beginner topics to advanced topics tricks and working on your bike
Come out with that every Tuesday
I come out with a BMX news video on fridays and other types of riding videos and streams throughout the week
I want to thank you guys for being here to watch and we will see you tomorrow for another video. Goodbye
You