How to Avoid 5 Common Bike Repair Mistakes

Even the most basic repairs can go badly—sometimes comically—wrong. Here are five common rookie-wrench mistakes and our expert's instructions for avoiding them.

At the DIY-wrenching classes I teach, I encourage my students to mess up as much as possible while they're learning—because when you make a mistake, the memory of what went wrong stays with you. I've heard tales of simple blunders, grand catastrophes and everything in between. But most of the time, my students tell me different versions of the same five stories over and over again. With luck, you'll remember them—and these simple fixes—to avoid making the same errors yourself.

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