A High Stakes, Last Minute Repair: How it Went and How I Felt While Doing the Work

The customer is walking in. I look up and see they have some parts in their hands, which usually isn't a good sign. They're getting closer now, and I can tell that they are definitely here for the Ironman, which means there's going to be a lot at stake for this repair.

They're getting close now. I'm going to need to say something soon. I take a breath to ground myself and prepare for human interaction.

"How can I help you?" I say as I walk around the repair stand that I use both to hold the bike I'm working on and as a social barrier to minimize any unwanted interactions. The customer proceeds to explain the current state of their bike; in short, it's not great.

As I'm listening to him explain the problems, it's as if he's trying to sell me on his used bike, downplaying the severity of the issues. I can tell he's anxious about his bike; he's constantly assuring me that it will be, in fact, an easy fix.

My quick analysis of the bike says that it may be more involved than he's so confidently telling me; although, his confidence is starting to wear off on me. He says that his training plan has him riding this afternoon, and he wonders if it could be looked at before then. It's not too busy yet, so with the newfound confidence that he has instilled in me, I say we can look at it by then.

The customer left me alone with the bike and a few loose parts.

I set the bike aside at first to finish the project that I was working on. Then, once the urgent other things were addressed, I was able to put his bike in the stand to fully assess it for the first time.

Here is the situation: he has been strictly riding this bike on an indoor trainer and just took it off before traveling up to LP for the race. While riding the bike on the trainer, his own sweat caused lots of corrosion on the bike. This left two problems, and they both had to do with the brakes. Firstly, the front rim brake caliper was rusted and seized to the point where you could still pull them to brake, but the spring was not strong enough to push the caliper back open, effectively leaving the brakes on the whole time. The second problem, and what would become the more complicated one, was that, on the rear brake, the bolt that tightens to clamp the cable was stuck in place and had a stripped head. As this is a proprietary brake caliper for this BMC tri-bike, the brake caliper is not a standard part, and the aforementioned bolt was quite small and countersunk into the arm of the brake, limiting the options on how to proceed.

I hope this goes well, I think to myself. Starting with the low-hanging fruit, I decided to look at the front brake first. The front caliper was pretty locked up; even without the cable attached, it was not returning back open freely. With some love, oil, and a little disassembly/reassembly, the caliper was moving much better now, and I am feeling more optimistic about the whole situation.

After the easy win on the front brake, I turned my attention to the rear brake. Upon a closer look, the situation seems trickier than I originally imagined. The rear brake is an important part of the bike, and as it stands, this one is not functional. What makes it worse is that this customer has a race in a few days, so ordering a replacement part is not an option. The rest of the world is tunneling in, and my thought process is getting more sporadic. I can feel my anxiety level start to build, as I remind myself that this guy traveled all the way here for this race, and his bike may not be in rideable condition. Taking another breath, I can think more clearly now. I decided to further disassemble the brake unit so that I can take a closer look at the problem and come up with a plan.

I remove the brake arm that has the stuck bolt, and in fact, the bolt is really in there. I tried the common tricks that can sometimes work to get stripped bolts out, and none of these tactics made any improvements. While attempting these methods to get the bolt out, I was thinking of the options if I could not get it unstuck. I came to two possible options: the cleanest would be to drill out the old stuck bolt, then re-tap the hole with new threads, and replace it with a new bolt. This would work well, but I came across some hurdles; the arm is made of a soft aluminum, and while I was drilling out the old bolt, the hole was getting damaged in the process. Even if I got the bolt out cleanly, the new threads might not be great, and the new bolt might have issues going in and clamping the cable. If I were a competent machinist with a drill press, I would have explored this route more, but I decided to pivot to my second plan, which I was confident would work well with the tools that I have.

Right before pivoting to this second plan, I thought it would be a good idea to call the customer to communicate what I was facing, and how I was planning to attack it. I've never liked talking to people on the phone, but in this instance, I thought it would be the best course of action so that the customer knows what to expect when they pick up their bike later in the day. As I walked over to the phone, my brain was going into fight or flight mode, and I was subconsciously looking for an excuse to convince myself that I didn't need to go through with this call. But I was able to convince myself that a call now would make the rest of the repair less stressful. The phone rings. I think to myself, come across confident, explain the situation, let him know that you have a plan that will work, and we are still on pace to finish with time for him to ride this evening. The call went well.

Now I'm back working on the bike; things are looking good. My plan now is to tackle a different part of the stuck bolt and remove enough material to pass the brake cable through the hole, then use an external cable clamp to grab onto the cable and clamp it in place.

This goes well. I feel the pressure being lifted. We are on the home stretch now; I finished up the rest of the adjustments, and both brakes work now. The bike is rideable, the customer will be able to race on Sunday, and the shop will get paid. I felt relieved, and the customer was happy.

From here, I move to working on some other simpler problems that in a way felt comforting, just like how cooking a familiar meal can be. I even had time to clean up the workbench and reset before whatever else this week may bring.