With my daughter finally starting to ride a bike, I figured it would be a perfect time for me to get one for myself so we can ride together. I didn't want anything fancy, (or expensive) since the majority of our riding will be down to the end of the street and back. Here's a fast/short review of the project...
The bike itself cost me $55 from WalMart. I'm not expecting much of a bike, but the model they had in the store "looked" cool
Here's what it should look like when I'm done.
I was trying to figure out how I could make this project interesting and useful to this forum. So, I decided I was going to try to put it together with just a multitool. (Ok, I actually decided to use two
)
The first tool I chose is the only one I have that's at all bike related. It's a Schwinn bike tool that I received as a gift last Christmas (pictured above), and has been sitting in my drawer since.
The second tool I decided to use was the SOG Powerlock w/ V cutter (pictured above). I chose this one mainly because it's big and heavy duty. I figured it'd be good for tightening any nuts/bolts I encounter.
The first step was getting the parts out of the box. The SOG worked well for pulling out the staples. I didn't notice any flexing in the pliers when I twisted the staples out. The pliers also gripped the staples really well and made the job easy.
Here's the bike out of the box. It came out in one piece! Now I have to seperate the parts.
The compound leverage made cutting thru the zip ties very easy. I was impressed with how smooth the cutters sliced thru the hard plastic with very little effort.
I was screwing around with using the V-cutter to cut the protective padding off of the pieces. The cutter went thru the tape like it wasn't there. It did bind up a bit when I tried cutting thru some cardboard.
The pic above is of my helper, and the reason I bought a bike
The specialized tools on the Schwinn really helped with some of the different fasteners used on the bike. The Allen head bits on the tool were really useful, and kept me from having to scour the house looking for the right sized Allen head wrench.
Here's where I ran into my first problem. The nuts holding the front tire on are 15mm. With the way the SOG opens, I couldn't get the pliers on the nut and get a grip on the pliers. The handles just ended up way to far apart. The Schwinn tool didn't have anything on it that would tighten the nuts, so I had to resort to using a 15mm wrench.
The Schwinn tool had three different wrench sizes. They seemed well fit to most of the smaller fastners on the bike. Adjusting the brake was a breeze with this tool.
I have to admit, the Schwinn tool was a lot more useful than I thought it would be. You can really tell it's made for biking. I found the Allen wrench's the most useful, since a lot of the different parts of the bike are adjusted by tightening/loosening Allen head screws.
And there it is, finished!
Aside from tightening the nuts on the front tire, everything was assembled/adjusted using either the Schwinn tool or the SOG Powerlock. I have to admit, this project was a bit more enjoyable than I expected. I think though, that it's probably because it gave me a chance to use some of my multi's
