How to Remove the Front Wheel of a Bicycle

Series Summary

Learning to ride a bicycle is usually regarded as one of the major milestones of childhood, since it is one of the first steps, after learning to walk, that a child takes towards independence. Taking this view, a bicycle can easily be seen as a precursor to the ultimate vehicle of autonomy: the automobile. Yet, many people ride bicycles into late adulthood, and some cultures have built entire transportation systems around the bike. So the bicycle remains both a fun vehicle for recreation and exercise and a viable means of transportation over relatively short distances.

It can be said that bicycles hold a certain excitement as simple machines that we can use to move our bodies faster than usually possible, pumping and pushing in sync with the gears and pedals. Yet sometimes things go awry, parts break down, tires fail, chains come off of gears. In this free video guide to bicycle repair and maintenance, learn how to keep your bike in good riding shape, or fix it on the road, should the need arise. Lessons include how to fix a flat tire, install new hand grips, grease the gear chain, and tighten the brake pads for better stopping power.

Video Transcript

" Hi! This is Mike on behalf of expertvillage.com. For more information about bicycle maintenance please visit Prairie Path Cycles in Winfield, Illinois or visit our website at www.prairiepathcycles.com. In this clip I’ll be showing you how to take off your front wheel. Now the first thing you are going to want to do is disconnect the brakes and in this case this like has V brakes. So the way you would want to disconnect them is hold on the brake noodle which is a curved piece right here, you hold on that and you push the brake arm closest to the brake noodle and when you do that it will go over the little notch there and just slides off and then you are brakes are disconnected and the reason why you would want to do this is because it gives your tire more clearance when sliding out of the frame. So once you have that done then you go down to your skewer and the way you would want to disconnect this is you take this piece of the skewer right here turn it down and when you do that it releases the tension on the front wheel but it still can’t fall out because the fork has safety tabs on it, designed so, if you skewer for some reason does come loose, it can’t slide out of the frame. So what you would want to do is hold down the lever, you just turn and go to the other side and turn that counter clockwise a couple of turns until it works itself free. Once you do that the tire would just slide right out of the frame just like that and if you do have trouble still getting your tire through the brake pads what you can do is let some air out of your tire and then it should slide through with no problem and that is how you take off your front wheel."