How to Change Stock Parts on a Mountain Bike

Series Summary

The cycling craze started taking shape around the 1970's, gaining popularity as a legitimate sport over the last forty years. And as the upsurge of amateur biking enthusiasm continues to reach around the world, the disciples of cycling, both recreational and extreme, continue to multiply. One of the great ways to enjoy cycling is to go mountain biking and trail riding on the weekends. Not only is mountain biking a fun hobby, it can also be excellent exercise. Riding through rough, rocky terrain, or exploring the hills and valleys of a densely populated, verdant glen is not only a test of stamina and endurance, but also requires an acute awareness of one's surroundings at all times.

Because of the varieties of terrain you’ll be tackling when you go riding, mountain biking can at times be an extreme sport. Your bike is your ticket to safely and comfortably navigating these myriad landscapes; and thus you should understand a little about how it works. In this free bicycle care and maintenance video series, learn how your wheels and tires work to bring you across broad swaths of land with speed and efficiency. We’ll demonstrate how to change wheel cassettes, chain rings, how to install a new front dérailleur and spindle, and how to replace tire stems. Watch these videos carefully to learn how to customize your mountain bike…and control your riding experience.

Video Transcript

"For the most part, a bike that you buy at a bike shop, fully-assembled, is going to be set up for an idealized rider in idealized conditions. Depending on where you live, how you ride, and how you're shaped; the changes that you can make to your bike to more suit your needs are pretty varied. You can have a bike that's set up for your average rider, your average conditions. Say you live someplace that has really steep trails, you might want a wider handlebar for more leverage. You might want a higher handlebar to raise your front end a little bit when you're descending. At the same time, you might want a handlebar with medium rise if you want your handlebars a little lower for better cornering. If you ride a lot of really steep hills, you might want to change your gear cluster out from something that's more moderate-sized to something with a really large cassette. Depending on your ergonomics, how you're shaped, you might want to change your seat for something different. Often times, the stock-length stem that you find on a complete bike might not be the right length for either how you want to ride or how you're shaped. So there's all sorts of things; other gearing, the type of pedals that you use, tires. Everything always has room for fine-tuning. So it's always good to remember you get a good value by buying a complete bike, but sometimes you have to change some parts out."