Winter Bike Upgrade Project

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One of my goals for this winter is to ride my bike to work. In late November, I realized this was not going to happen without some upgrades to my bike.

My friend Garrick hooked me up with a sweet deal on components and helped me (read: I helped hold stuff) perform the upgrades over the course of two Saturdays in January.

I rode my bike over to Garrick's when it was -11° F out. Brrr!

We planned to install:

Before:

Before photo

The fenders presented the biggest problem (hah, I thought they would be easy).

The front mounting bracket did not match up with the hole in the fork. Fortunately Garrick has an insane amount of tools including a shop drill, so we were able to drill a new hole (photo by Garrick).

drilling a new hole in the fork

The whole process of putting on the fenders took about 3 hours, so we called it a day.

The next weekend we finished the job. Putting on the handle bars was the biggest part because we had to run two new cables. After that, getting the lights and kickstand on was a snap, and we were done!

After:

Bike upgrade: finished product

So, how is it?

Me and my steed. First ride to work since bike upgrade

I like it! The fenders are great for keeping the slush off. The new handlebars probably need to be a bit higher but they are much more comfortable and a lot easier to ride with gloves.

More photos of the bike upgrade by me and by Garrick.