Bicycle adjustments

A bicycle is rarely complete when you roll it out of the bicycle store, however. There will be some adjustments to be done. Obviously, the seat needs adjusting, and possibly also the steering wheel. Time and time again, I have also experienced the need to adjust gear and brakes immediately after the bicycle leaves the store. Also, with new wires and everything, you should expect to adjust these again within few days, as the wires will stretch.

With this bicycle, absolutely everything needed some adjustments pretty fast. Only the wheels and gears seemed to be properly fastned. Every other screw were not tightened properly: seat came down slowly, steering wheel was suddenly not aligned, etc. And the gear wire was going slalom between a couple of screws - no wonder it needed tweaking!

I did not have a checklist, however. The tip is, just begin in one end and check every detail you encounter. It's not rocket science, even though there are some clever patents involved. When you look these things up on the Internet, you'll find plenty of guides.

However, most of these guides are in the form of a recepie. But actually understanding the mechanics is probably the best guide you can have. Understanding usually comes with experience, so the time spent ahead of time experimenting comes in handy.