How to Lube your chain without a paddock stand or a mate to help!

 

 

Maybe i should have put this into a new category, someting like, the handy hints section but hey ho!. This is a little tip that my dad showed me last summer and my chain has thanked him for it.

You will need:

1 piece of wood about 8 inches wide and about an inch or 2 longer than the height of your rear wheel spindle.

Once you have the materials :-) place them like this:

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Then, standing on the left hand side of the bike, reach over and grab the subframe where it meets the main frame and lift the back of the bike until you hear a slight donk sound. That will be the piece of wood falling under the wheel spindle like this:

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Let the wood take the weight of the bike. once all the weight is taken by the wood you can now let go :-). If the wood is long enough then the wheel is now just about off the ground. Now the wheel can be spun with one hand while you lube the chain with the other, Easy.

Once you have lubed/washed your chain/wheel you will need to get the piece of wood out again. I use the 'kick the piece of wood out of the way' method which is as follows: Take the large booty thing on the end of leggy thing and move it with great velocity towards the woody thing supporting the metally plasticy thing. The booty thing and the woody thing will connect, sending the woody thing out from under the metally plasticy thing and the metally plasticy thing will return to the hard concretey thing. Job Done.