Bike Stories
A child's first pedal bike: balance bike or stabilisers
Balance bike, stabilisers, or straight to pedals? What each one teaches, which one wastes the most time, and the four checks to do on the pedal bike before the first ride off.
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The Bike Stories blog
Practical bike maintenance
Short, useful reads on keeping a bike running: what wears out and when, what a service is actually worth, and how to know before something breaks.
What size bike a kid actually needs — inseam and standover, not age
A five-year-old is usually on a 16-inch wheel — but 'usually' does a lot of work. How to settle it with a book and a tape measure: inseam, standover, saddle height, and the brake-reach check the charts leave out.
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Bike wheel rattling: hub and bearing wear, checked in ten minutes
The wobble you feel is the wheel moving inside the hub, not the rim. The spin-down check and the hand-roller test catch it before the headset goes — plus what a service and a new hub each cost.
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Why that tyre is so hard to mount — and how to seat it properly
The bead is round, the rim is oval — that is the whole problem. Bead tension, valve-first order, levers at 4 and 8, and the one rim check that catches the problems that are not about technique at all.
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Chain lube: wet, dry, wax, and which one your conditions actually want
Wet lube, dry lube, hot wax: what each one is for, how long each lasts, and why the chain decides the lube, not the other way around. Plus the five-minute routine that replaces every schedule.
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