Getting your hands dirty

There is something immensely satisfying about doing your own bike maintenance and then feeling the smoothness of the ride afterwards.

I didn’t write about it here, but at the start of Covid I got rid of my car. My lease contract was ending, and I decided not to renew it. I wasn’t driving to clients any more, I worked from home so no commute. It seemed like a perfect opportunity to save a ton of money.

I didn’t go complete car-free (much yay for Greenwheels!) but a lot of small trips that I used to do by car now became bike rides.

I plan to write a longer article on how that affected my life and what my experiences have been, but today I wanted to talk about a smaller aspect that I hadn’t counted on: bikes are simple.

What do I mean with bikes are simple? Well, basically that if you put your mind to it, you can pretty much completely understand how a bicycle works.

Moderns cars have become computers on wheels that require tons of specialised tools to debug, but a bicycle is mostly just mechanical. It’s gears, springs, wires and that’s it.

Now this doesn’t mean that I can now do all my maintenance myself, but I’ve been slowly learning how to do small maintenance myself. So today, in preparation for my bike trip I degreased, cleaned and re-lubricated my chain. I checked some Youtube videos before I started and it turned out to be remarkably simple.

I did a quick test-ride and my bike just felt buttery smooth again. Lovely!

In a world where we become ever more dependent on technology companies and subscription services, the simplicity and autonomy of a bicycle almost feels like an act of rebellion.

I do need to write a disclaimer here: I’m talking about old-fashioned fully mechanical bicycles. E-bikes are amazing and a boon to mobility for many people, but unfortunately that comes at the price of greater complexity.

I realised that me being able to just ride a mechanical bike is itself a great form of privilege, as is living in a place where having a bicycle as your prime mode of transport is viable in the first place.