- You can buy old mountain bikes for not a lot of money now.
Like this old downhill bike, you can get this
for a couple hundred pounds, or dollars,
off something like Ebay, or a friend.
Maybe it's been lying in his shed for 15 years.
This is how to check over an old bike,
and then how to restore it to get it back onto the trails.
(throwing gravel)
This is a GT Downhill i-Drive from the year 2000.
Yep, it's a very old bike, but this could be a really good
bike for someone who maybe only rides downhill
a few times a year, just to keep in the shed.
You don't want to lose any money on it.
Here's a list of a few things that you need to check ideally
before you buy the bike to make sure
you're not gonna have to throw too much money at it.
Let's start with suspension.
(hip-hop music)
First thing to do is just push on that suspension.
Grab your front brake, push that fork down.
I'm really trying to feel how smooth it is,
if it's making much noise, and actually,
the fork does feel a little bit notchy as I push it down,
and I can hear a bit of sucking going on, so I think
the fork would probably need a service ideally.
Whereas the shock feels pretty good.
It's nice and smooth, feels nice and plush actually,
for seventeen year old shock,
and I'd also check that there's some
rebound control on that, which there is.
Same on the fore.
If it's actually poppin' back and sort of toppin' out,
makin' a noise, springing back really quickly.
First thing we do is wind the rebound control in,
see if that makes any difference, and if it doesn't,
that means that shock is blown, or the fork is blown.
That definitely doesn't really tend to happen so much
nowadays on modern suspension, but in the olden days,
all these shocks, they would blow occasionally.
Next, take an actual close look at the suspension.
The shock actually looks fine, it feels fine.
The fork, you can see there's some pretty big damage
down here on the paint, but,
actually, there's no dents or anything.
That's just cosmetic really.
However, up on the stanchion, you see
they're very scratched up here.
It's definitely something you see lot in the U.K.
on uplifts for Dinobikes with scratches all over 'em.
But also, you can see a bit of oil is coming out
and sitting on that stanchion, and on the seal,
you can see that oil stuck to dust.
That right hand leg doesn't look very good.
It's not gonna be that easy to buy a stanchion
from a 2000 boxer, so, if I was buying this bike,
I'd definitely think about maybe
tryin' to knock that person down,
because you might need to buy a new fork for this bike.
There's a couple more checks I can do to my suspension.
I already know that that fork leg is a little bit damaged,
but I'm just gonna check the bushes in the fork, as well.
I'll pump my front brake,
and just rock the bike back and forth.
Almost like checking your headset,
but now you're looking for any
movement in this part of the fork.
There's bushes in there that can wear out,
and that means this stanchion can start wobbling around,
and actually this feels pretty tight.
I can't feel any movement in the headset,
or down in that fork, so that's probably alright for now.
And on the rear end, I'm gonna check the linkage
by trying to wobble the bike.
I'm holding the saddle in one hand, rear wheel in the other,
and really feeling for any movement
if I flex it back and forth.
You might feel some in the rear wheel,
actually that feels really solid,
so I would think these bearings are
in pretty good condition, and also
the rear wheel is nice and stiff.
(hip-hop music)
Now it's time to get out my bike cleaner and brush,
give this bike a really good clean.
Take off 17 years worth of dirt,
and actually give the frame a really good check.
Right, so with the bike clean,
it doesn't look like I cleaned it first,
covered in years worth of stickers and scratches,
but I'm really gonna do now is check out
the sort of most important parts.
This is an old aluminium frame,
so go around, definite head tube, the swing arm,
just to take a really close look.
Paint damage is alright, of course.
Doesn't look that great, but you really
don't want to see a crack on that weld.
Also, actually, I can see there's a
FSA Pig headset on this bike.
That was an old trick, that really deep headset.
Some bikes are this, the head tubes are actually ovalized,
your bottom headset cup would roll around in there.
These pegs were really far extended,
so they kept it nice and tight,
but obviously it does tell me that this
head tube's probably a little bit ovalized.
(hip-hop music)
The final thing I check, ideally, before buying a bike,
is the wheel, so give them a spin
and see how straight they are.
Actually, a pretty good flat front one,
I'll do the same with the back.
Another thing to consider is if they're old
wheels with alloy nipples, they can start breaking on you.
If you do need to start tweaking wheels,
changing spoke tensions, they can start breaking,
and that can be a nightmare.
It would mean you'd have to replace
the nipples for the whole wheel probably.
These are all brass ones, so they're pretty much
indestructible, so I'm fine there.
Also check the rim for any sort of dings,
or any cracks, and that looks pretty good.
Obviously, I've got a disc brake,
so it doesn't have to be perfectly straight.
I've got some old wheels in here, of course.
I've got Hope bearings on the front,
so just bear in mind that sometimes all wheels,
you might struggle to get new bearings for.
Having said that, Hope are really good with their old stuff.
They've actually hooked me up already with a new old
stock brake for this bike, so that's a Mono M4.
Hope are one of those people who actually keep
spares for their really old stuff,
but not everyone does that.
Actually, quite surprisingly for an old downhill bike
like this, the wheels seem in really good condition.
Yes, it's a little bit scratched, but almost straight,
and the spoke tension seems really good.
I don't need to do too much of that.
I have already put some new tyres on this.
I say new, they are some old ones from my garage,
but they're in decent condition.
Bear in mind that an older bike like this
is 26-inch wheels, so you might find that the tyres
are getting harder and harder to come by.
The bearings also spin pretty well on that rear hub,
as well, so I'mma leave that for now.
It might be a job I need to do
in the future, but, for now, it's fine.
Now, moving on to other checks.
Going to the bottom bracket, I can feel if I rock,
you can probably see that, is the bottom bracket's moving,
so both cranks are moving at the same time,
so I know nothing's loose in there.
It's the bottom bracket that's worn.
It's spinning okay, but it's worth bearing in mind that,
you know, I don't know how far you wanna get into this.
If you want your bike to feel like new,
you're definitely gonna have to replace that bottom bracket.
For me, it's a bit of a hacker bike.
It doesn't have to be perfect.
I can live with that for the time being.
I'll think about replacing that bottom bracket
some time not too far in the distant future.
Of course, double check that your cranks are nice and tight.
These are ones you had in an eight ml Allen key
on both sides, and I'mma do a full bolt check
on the bike at the end, but definitely lost on here.
I'll check that crank's nice and tight.
(hip-hop music)
Coming in forward on the bike to the headset,
just rotate your bars around and feel on that head tube
for any sort of grinding in there.
Feels surprisingly smooth, so this part's obviously
been pretty well looked after.
Again, I could get into this and
take everything off and lube that up,
but for now, actually, that feels pretty good.
I'm not gonna worry too much about that.
Moving on to things on the brakes,
we've already talked about them a little bit already.
I've got a brand new old stock rear brake.
The thing is with brakes, again, like the hubs,
it can be quite hard to find the spares if they're very old,
and if you're pulling on the lever and
it feels like there's a lot of friction there,
or it's not rebounding very quickly,
that could mean there's a problem down in the callipers.
The pistons can seize.
And that's definitely now worth thinking about,
weighing up the cost of that.
It actually can be quite a lot of work to
pop out those pistons, find the replacement,
find a service kit for replacing the seals in the calliper,
when actually you can get a fairly new set
of hydraulic brakes for not a lot of money now.
That's up to you.
Think about are you gonna try and fix that old brake,
or maybe just buy a new cheap one.
I would always expect to replace
the gear cables on an old bike.
It's just one of those things that always needs doing.
Now, check the drive train, and you can use
a specialist chain checker like this,
but this really depends on how old the bike is,
and how well it's been looked after.
I use this chain checker anyway,
and this is tellin' me that
at .75, it says replace,
and
I'm well over that, so I'm 1.0
so they definitely need a new chain
and probably a new drivetrain on this bike.
You don't want it slippin' around,
so I'm gonna price that up.
One of the final things I'm gonna do,
and it will seem quite tedious,
is actually remove the bolts of
this bike one by one, and just check.
That's actually really dry, so I'm gonna regrease that,
and put it in back in, because,
I know it sounds like a very tedious thing to do but
if you find any of these old bolts get stripped, or they get
stuck in there and snap, it can be an absolute nightmare,
especially on this fork and
these notoriously bad, the old boxes.
I've had these old axles seize in there,
so obviously again, it depends on the previous owner.
How well they looked after the bike,
but try and get some grease into
these bolts as much as we can, and then
I'mma do a full bolt check, front to back on the bike.
Make sure everything's nice and tight,
and then the bike is ready to ride.
What I didn't tell you, at the start of the video,
is actually this is my old bike
that I raced in the year 2000 World Cup downhill.
I sold it to friends and I just got it back,
and coming up soon on the channel, I will be riding
this bike so keep your eyes peeled for that one.
If you wanna see some more videos,
click up there for a video with Doddy,
How To Check Out A Secondhand Bike And Fix It Up.
Click down there for How To Replace Your Drivetrain.
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