- A toothbrush,
some baby wipes,
a t-shirt.
What do these all have in common?
Well, they're great for when you're
in the workshop and in this video,
we've got some amazing mechanic's hacks
for every, single person at home.
So, stay tuned.
Okay, number one.
It's the baby wipes.
Now, for all you people who are commenting
right now and saying that my bike
is a little bit dirty,
which it is,
it's been ridden.
But it doesn't need quite a hose down.
The dirt is dried on and this
is when these baby wipes come into play.
Now, they're so easy to use.
And what I've found,
is that they clean up
everything like a charm.
You can get into all those tricky places.
Around the bottle cage,
for example.
Right down into the hubs and
clean out all and behind the chainstay.
Where the dirt can really stick to.
And sometimes you can really miss it with a brush.
So, I'm gonna give my bike a quick wipe down.
Alright, so there we go.
Bike is looking a little bit cleaner now
and it's so easy just to do it.
Don't forget that you can actually
do this in the car park.
These are actually great for cleaning mucky hands.
Hand, helmet, equipment, et cetera,
all polishes up really well with these.
So, if you've never done it before,
check it out.
Now, pretty much everyone at home
has got a t-shirt that they were given to
for Christmas that they probably don't want.
It's one size too big,
it fits a little bit awkwardly.
Well, this is actually perfect
just to cut up and then
you can use it as a rag
to clean your bike.
Wipe it down.
Use a bit of water and Fairy Liquid.
It's a great hack when you're washing you bike.
Done it many a times.
Or you can just clean the chain with it.
Next up, there's a bit of a creak
coming from my front wheel
and I'm assuming that it's coming from the axle.
So, I'm gonna take the axle out,
give it a clean,
using my rag,
and then I'm going to show you how to re-grease it,
with a little hack.
Okay, so I've got my toothbrush.
This one is an old one, it's been used.
It's past it's best so what I'm going to do
is just dip that into my grease.
And then it really allows me just to,
super evenly,
apply the grease along the axle.
So it's actually covering the whole thing.
And I go to slide it in,
it shouldn't actually just get that
big bong that you get at the end of it.
Where the dirt then sticks to the grease.
So there you go.
Look at my axle.
Nicely done.
Excellent, super easy, look at that.
No gunge, boosh.
Okay, this next hack,
well it's three-in-one.
I'm gonna use a spoke and show you three different ways
that you can make this into a hack
that's gonna help you.
Okay, number one,
I'm gonna cut off the J-bend part of the spoke
and we're gonna sharpen it to give you
a little peg so you can check those threads over.
You can do whatever you want with it.
Jam it in places and just get dirt out.
Here we go.
Let's cut it.
Right, so you've cut your spoke.
You're just gonna get a file.
We're gonna sharpen it up a little bit.
Give it a bit of a point so you can
just get into those threads and
get the dirt out.
And just like that,
I've got my sharpened spoke.
So, I'm just take it on to the jockey wheels.
There's been a bit of dirt
and grime's been built up.
The chain might not sit in them quite so well.
So with my sharpened spoke,
we're just gonna get rid of all that.
And the chain is gonna be running smooth.
And then my next hack for it,
which I'm not gonna do,
is if you've got internal cable ring.
And you can just use one of these.
And even bend it, twist it, ever so slightly
to give it a bit of a hook.
And then you can fish out that
tricky internal cable ring system.
So next up, the use of that spoke,
we're gonna cut the J-bend off, again.
And this time it's actually going to be to
hold your chains together when you put
the quick link in.
So you're gonna need a bit that's about,
gonna say, an inch and a half.
So we'll cut it down to that.
And then we're gonna bend each end
with a slight L shape.
So they can hook the chain.
Gonna do that now,
using a pair of pliers.
Okay, so that's the short of shape
you're look for.
It's that easy to bend using just a pair of pliers.
I'm now going to hook that onto the chain
and we're gonna join it back up.
Okay, so what makes it really easy for us
is when you pull that down,
you can hook the chain together.
You can almost, actually,
just let go of the chain itself.
It's gonna sit in that position
and then you can just work
and put that powerlink in.
Or if you've got a shimano chain and
you need to add the pin in,
exactly the same thing.
It just give you that bit more of space.
You've almost got an extra set of hands.
And then just hold on to the max so it doesn't spring back.
Remove your pin and there it is.
It's joined back together.
Super easy.
- Okay, next up is a suspension hack
and this is an easy on to do at home.
All you're gonna need is a tiny little zip tie.
You don't want anything sharp.
And the first thing you're gonna do
is make sure that you give that seal a good clean.
'Cause when you do this,
you don't want to get any dirt in behind.
And then, just with your fingernail,
nothing else,
just ever so slightly peel back that seal.
Slip the zip tie down and you might
sometimes hear a little bit of air escape.
Especially, if you've been travelling
or riding some really long descents.
It can just build up and it's not gonna
give you that really sensitivity
at the start of the travel that you're looking for.
Okay, now this next one is more of a bodge.
It's not so much of a hack but can get you out of gaol
if you start to round out that bolt.
What I'm talking about is
if you use a torque's key like this one here.
It's a T-25, this bolt would normally take
a four mil Allen key,
but it almost fits perfectly.
Now, I wouldn't want to actually ramp this up
but if I have started to round of some of the edges
where I want to get that Allen key in,
I can actually find that it might just sit in.
And it would just give me that little bit of
push just to almost undo it.
Likewise, if you have forgotten your Allen key
then you could think about using a set of
torque key to tighten things up.
But you don't want to go too extreme with it.
Cause you don't want to damage any of those heads.
Okay, now one of the hardest things
when it comes to mechanicing is actually
getting your disc rotors aligned correctly.
This clever little hack,
well I found it from a friend on World Cup racing
and a specific tool for it,
but you don't need that.
All you need is two little bits of card,
which we're gonna show you how to make.
And you're gonna put these in between the disc
and the pad itself.
Okay, so the first thing you're gonna do is,
you're gonna loosen off the calliper.
And then those two pieces of card
that I cut up and made earlier,
they're just gonna go in between the
disc rotor and the disc pads.
So, we're gonna slot them in there.
It can be a little bit of a fiddle to get in there.
There we go, number two is also in.
So, now all I need to do is tighten
those five mil bolts back up.
And I should have my calliper correctly spaced.
So let's get those cards out.
One out.
Two out.
Just be careful of your fingers.
Give it a spin and let's find out.
Boom!
Perfectly aligned.
Okay, now this next hack is a total pro one.
And it's not one that I necessarily
gonna recommend that you jump out to the garage
and do instantly after watching this video.
But it's all about trimming your tyres down.
So, you could be looking for a little bit more
rolling resistance or you could be looking for
a sharper braking edge.
If you've got an old tyre then
this is a perfect time to experiment.
All you're gonna need is a really sharp
set of side cutters.
And what you can do from there is
just experiment with different patterns.
Find out what works for you.
And, hey, you're gonna feel like a pro.
So, hopefully there's some hacks in there
that you're gonna find really useful
for yourself, as a home mechanic.
And if you want to watch some more videos from GMBN,
then make sure that you click on that globe to subscribe.
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And then click just up there,
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And click down there for seven hacks
to get ready before your ride.
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Leave your comments down below of
what hacks you like doing.
And there's only one thing left to do,
make sure you share it with all your mates.
See ya!