I spotted this recent addition on the University of Oregon campus recently. It’s a bike repair station, with an assortment of tools secured by cables, and an air pump.
The bike is suspended by its seat post between those two padded rods at the top. I wonder how useful it is; pretty much every emergency repair I’ve had to make is a flat, and I don’t see a patch kit dispenser. Actually, a couple of years back, we snapped one of the chains on our tandem, not at all far from here. I wouldn’t have been able to fix that here.
So what tools would a curbside car repair station have in order to be useful?
There’s really not much that can be repaired curbside without a trip to the parts store (and I’ve done my share of parking lot repairs). That said, I’d suggest the following:
1. air pump
2. Tire plugs, tool and cement (or slime)
3. Pliers
4. Phillips and flat-head screwdrivers
5. Bailing wire (to temporarily hang busted body panels, exhaust parts – use with pliers)
6. Snips (to cut away busted body panels)
7. Roll of duct tape (can’t everything be repaired with duct tape?)
8. Silicone Tape (this really is useful, will temporarily patch a radiator hose leak).
A fat wallet.
A service adviser and a courtesy car? Seriously, I’m not sure how useful one of these would be. Your car should already have everything you need to change a flat, and there is not much else that routinely quits on modern cars that is not somehow specific to a make/model.
Really, not sure how useful the bike repair station is, either. I was always able to fix flats by turning the bike upside down. You need your own tools and your own patch kit. The analog to this might be a standalone hoist – bring your car and your tools. And a pen to sign the nasty liability waiver.
An ATM.
OBDll.
Speaking as a former technician, I can offer a stranded motorist one of two things: A ride, or the use of my cell phone. The days of fiddling with the choke plate or bending apart a set of points are long gone.
Nowadays, if a car is parked it’s most likely a bad fuel pump (located in the fuel tank), a bad timing belt, or a bad control module. None of which I’m fixing on the side of the road.
I find that bicycle repair station fascinating. I’d very much appreciate your taking a walk buy it periodically, as I’m curious about how long it’ll remain before its vandalized.
And I find it rather rediculous. Despite a bicycle being as simple a transportation vehicle as you can get, there are very few things you can repair on the side of the road. Flats are the most prevalent. Which means you either carry a spare tube, patch kit, or spare tyre (in the case of sew-ups) yourself. The only thing the repair station could add to the mix is the pump.
Second most common failure is a snapped spoke. Which is difficult to impossible to repair on the roadside, even if you’re carrying a couple of spare spokes with you. Such behavior is the norm for the long distance tourer with panniers and camping equipment, not the local commuter.
A derailleur stop screw adjustment is possible at the station, but odds are if your derailleur is working correctly you aren’t going to touch it. And if its not working correctly, you’re going to fix it at home before you go riding. Derailleur control wire/brake cable adjustment is possible, but the odds of something here going out of whack on the commute is slim. And even if it does, short of a broken cable, you can fudge with the out of adjustment setup until you get home.
The next most possible mode of bike malfunction is a wreck. And if you’ve bent the frame or fork, you’re talking to me, not working on it by yourself.
Somehow, somebody or organization decided to waste a bit of money on some environmental correctness. I’ll be curious to see how long it stands unvandalized.
Mostly Agree. I was a bit surprised that the University bothered. It probably came out of some budget allocated to making the campus more bike friendly.
I think the tools are more useful than you think for things like loose rack or fender bolts, and quick seat or handlebar adjustments.
There has been one of these outside Whole Foods in Tualatin Oregon for almost 2 years now and it has been kept in good repair.
I could have used this repair station before. Sometimes something just comes loose at an in opportune moment, like the seat tilt clamp. Also a couple of times I’ve had a chain come off and the right way to fix it would be moving the wheel back to take up the slack.
Also, I have performed a few roadside repairs on classic cars. Once when driving a ’65 Falcon on a short trip on I10 the car began intermittently losing power. I got off at the next exit, found a gas station, and dumped the rust out of the fuel filter. This fixed the problem, and I don’t think I ever actually replaced it. On the same car, once the starter wouldn’t engage. I took the starter off, fiddled with the bendix mechanism a little, put it back on, and it cranked right up. Took less then ten minutes. Another example would be cleaning spark plugs, cleaning corroded battery terminals, bypassing a bad switch, I can think of lots of roadside repairs that require only tools and time but no new parts.
“I can think of lots of roadside repairs that require only tools and time but no new parts.”
Yes, on a ’65 Falcon.
Or my ’78 Fairmont 😀
Well yeah. It wasn’t really my car; I borrowed it for a year or so after my cars were damaged in Katrina. It was a real Curbside Classic though, an unrestored daily driver used for 40 years with only the minimum of repairs and maintenance. Which is to say, it was kind of a piece of junk. But it always got me where I needed to go and in could fix it on the roadside with basic hand tools. And I got constant “cool car” compliments despite the rust and filth.
I think the expectation is that you bring your own consumables. For a bike, you can fit some glueless patches in a pocket or even stick a tube in a seat pack, then the repair station provides a good pump and the tools you need. The only time I have used one of these was to pump up a soft tire when I had was a CO2 inflator but no pump with me.
For car or motorcycle repair, you should be carrying tools or calling a pro, however an air compressor with a good gauge for keeping your tires inflated in a convenient spot in the parking lot would be a good thing, as would fluid level check station with paper towels, funnels and a trash container.
I don’t believe a roadside car repair station could operate without a human attendant there 24/7. Not only to prevent vandalism, but to ensure people don’t abuse the equipment or are negligent in the equipment care… intentional or not.
Perhaps 40 to 50 years ago, when cars were simpler and less reliable, it would have been useful.
I doubt people would return the equipment in proper order for the next customer.
Just observe the typical gas station air pump or vacuuming station. Rarely is equipment returned to it’s place, including the hose rewound and the nozzle reseated.
I can’t imagine the public being trusted to maintain a maintenance station without
full time attendants and regular upkeep throughout the day/night.
This reminds me of the time several years ago, when I crashed my bike, bending the rear derailleur. Things were bent up so badly that the derailleur was banging against the spokes. So… I pulled a paper clip out of my pocket, snapped off a piece of it, and wedged it between the frame of the bike and the derailleur, to angle the derailleur away from the wheel. This was intended as a quickie road repair to get me home, but the bike worked prefectly with the bit of paper clip in place, and the road repair became permanent. I think I rode that bike for over a decade that way.
So my question is, do they have paper clips? Otherwise, I don’t think it’s gonna work.
A Latte machine. And a cell phone charger.
For a modern car, the only tool you need is a laptop…..
Enough facilities to charge the e-bike, more important.
(Photo: SBN Bouw BV)
Never seen a curbside bike repair station here, and we’ve got a zillion bikes.
Essential repair stuff and an air pump often come with the bike.
There’s a company called Bikefixation
https://www.bikefixation.com/
Which provides both repair stands and adjacent vending machines, as well as other bike-friendly site improvements. They, or their competitors get installed in bike-friendly communities (Starbucks in Mueller, Austin, etc.) and are very welcome!
On my bike commutes home (23mi, these days only once a month), I carry my own tubes and key repair tools.