Hiya pals, lots to report on from NYC, some good, some hard, but for the moment I wanted to send around the latest and probably final version of my handy repair guide. This is intended as a teaching tool to help people in the shop work more autonomously on bike fixing, regardless of their level of skill.
There are two PDFs attached. The first one is for intake, as in, "do we want to repair this bike or strip and scrap it?" The second is for bikes that have passed through intake successfully. It gives a step-by-step repair guide -- not a "how to," but a "what to." It's meant to help especially newer mechanics move through a bike's systems, well, systematically, in a way that supports their learning and praxis.
The intake one probably works well printed and laminated; it can be used multiple times. The repair one is meant to remain with a bike throughout its repair life, and also be included with its sale (or giveaway or whatever). I designed it to be printed out double-sided on four sheets of paper and then folded or saddle stitched into a booklet or zine. "Four sheets of paper?!", I hear you gasp. Yes. Of all the similar documents I've come across that have been squeezed onto one page, either they've been way too cramped and shorthanded to actually be a helpful and approachable resource for people who are new to wrenching, or they've been way too terse and reductive to be good repair guides. I think this guide answers those goals really well.
Let me know what you think. Feel free to use these in your own shops, and I can make the InDesign files available too so you can doctor them to your needs. (I'm also including a copy that's laid out for screen viewing as opposed to printing, but it's really not designed to be used that way -- it's a hardcopy tool).
Also FWIW the bike intake workflow is designed around a colored tag system:
- No tag means "intake me someone, please."
- Red tags say "strip and scrap me"
- Blue tags say "fix me, someone"
- Orange tags say "price me, I've been fixed up"
- Green tags say "sell me" and have price stickers on them
- Some blue tags have sparkles and additional text that indicates "fix me, someone -- but I'm fancy, so not a good beginner project."
- The most cost-effective tags I found are these. (I know, I know)