Maintenance Courses

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Bikeworks mechanics course delegates
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What are Maintenance Courses?

We run Beginners, Intermediate and Specialist Maintenance courses at our East and West Training Hubs.

Our beginners course is a great introduction to bicycle maintenance and is suitable for people who have never touched an allen key in their life, or people who have muddled through a puncture repair but would like to be slicker.

After the course you will be able to check your bike over before a ride to make sure it is road worthy, or repair a puncture much more confidently. You will also pick up some tips for keeping your bike in good shape, hopefully making your servicing intervals less frequent.

The Beginners course covers:

  • Roadside puncture repair – removal of wheel and tyre
  • M-Check (learning how to check that major components are safe and roadworthy, making minor adjustments)
  • Removal and refitting of brake blocks, balancing brake calipers
  • Adjusting brake cable tension
  • Preventative care e.g. how to clean and lubricate your bike parts

The intermediate maintenance course builds on the skills introduced in the beginners course. Therefore it is worth taking that course first, or being sure you are comfortable with the skills covered.

The Intermediate course covers:

  • An in depth look at brakes (cables, maintenance)
  • Setting up gears
  • Derailleur limit screws demonstration
  • Principles of adjusting derailleur (front and rear) also known as indexing
  • Basic wheel truing

This course is great for people who wish to be able to keep their bike running smoothly between major services, or who would like the skills to perform parts upgrades themselves.

We run a number of specialist subjects such as Bromptons, hydraulics, drive chain/ gear indexing and soon e-bikes! A good level of prior cycle maintenance knowledge is needed before joining these courses. If you have a specific interest but don’t see a course for it, get in touch!

The training centre is fully equipped with everything you need on the day (and more!) but these tool kits are a great way to use the skills you learn on your own bike after the course:

Basic tool kit – £20
Puncture repair kit, set of 3 super B tyre levers, wet/dry lubricant and a Neos simplicity L wench (non ratchet) with 10 bits.

Advanced tool kit – £35
Puncture repair kit, set of 3 super B tyre levers, wet/dry lubricant and a SuperB 18 in 1 folding tool.

Our Bespoke Courses offer more flexibility than our other courses and can be tailored to your needs. They can be designed for beginners and intermediate, and you can select from a choice of modular courses including hydraulics, Brompton, BMX, Wheel Building and more. You can also include any of the City & Guilds Accredited Courses that we already deliver.

Click here to find out more.

“Chris was a great tutor! We covered lots of useful things in the class and it was all clearly explained.” Anthony

“David has a real passion for bikes which made the course both interesting and an opportunity to improve my maintenance skills.” Paul

“Final word on our instructor, David. He was brilliant. Calm, friendly, very willing to explain things over and over so the info and understanding ‘bedded in’. He didn’t just explain bings and let us make mistakes doing our own practical sessions, he stood by us helping us as we went. A really excellent instructor.” Nick

“I really like having a hands-on time to learn, and now I know things I wasn’t even aware of a bike (like truing a bike wheel)!” Francisco

“Thanks to David for giving such a great course! I had a really good time on Saturday and learned a lot of useful stuff about my bike!” Louise

“I have to say a massive thank you to Colin who was our instructor who was absolutely amazing with each and everyone of us. The knowledge he has and the balance he gave us with the theory and the practical was outstanding. He not only gave me the theory and practical like I said but the confidence in what I was doing as well. Thank you again Colin and to Bike Works. I would recommend Bike Works to everyone.” James 

“The course was great. It was delivered in a way that I could understand and I feel a lot more confident in basic maintenance of my bike especially fixing a puncture efficiently and quickly. The group was small so Chris was able to spend time with each of us. Chris was very knowledgeable and the course was fun.”  Katherine

“I attended the bikeworks beginners course yesterday. On behalf of myself and my friend who also went, I’d just like to say it was a great day and the instructor made the day thoroughly enjoyable and was very informative. We’d highly recommend it!” Joe

“I was really excited to attend the intermediate course having done the beginners course last year and I wasn’t disappointed. Really thorough. It was a lot of info to take in, and the practical really helped solidify.” Simon

“Chris was a great teacher, made the content accessible, was entertaining and I left feeling much more confident in my ability to look after my bike!”
Nick

“Small group which meant lots of scope for direct guidance, questions and interaction with Chris. Chris was great. Friendly, clear in his guidance and willing to answer a wide range of questions. A really useful and fun day!” Thomas

“Much more confident with the basics than I was before the course. Thanks for offering it.” Matt

“David was great – gauged the pace of the course against the class abilities, and imparted a wealth of knowledge. Really useful day.” Dave

“Colin was amazing and super knowledgable. He was able to answer every question we asked and was a brilliant instructor, the pace of the class was good and he knew how to link in our questions and what we wanted to cover to ensure there was a good flow to what we were learning. We left feeling way more knowledgable, confident and supported in the mechanics which were covered in the classes. I wasn’t expecting to learn as much as I did, it exceeded all our expectations.

I would definitely book further bespoke classes with you, and would even consider doing the level 2 just because of the quality of teaching and learning environment being so amazing. I have no suggestions of what to improve, it was ace.” Broad bikez

“Our trainer Colin was very informative, engaging with a great interactive style of teaching. He demonstrated our assessments as well as walked us through the process. We had so much fun! The sessions flew by and I want to do my level 2!”  Grace on bespoke course for ELREM

“The instructor Colin, took the class through all the key aspects of how to check your bike. It was a really valuable day and Colin took the time to speak to each student individually, explaining the different elements of their bike. This has improved not only my knowledge but confidence in both riding and repairing basic issues.” Jo

“I want to feed back on how good we found the intermediate bike maintenance course- it was pitched at just the right level, really practical and well explained. It was a very worthwhile day.” Jane

CANCELLATION POLICY

  • We may have to cancel sessions with fewer than 4 participants, and move participants’ bookings to a suitable future date.
  • Participants can switch course dates (subject to available spaces) or cancel their course a minimum 1 week before the course date. Cancellations/date changes after this point cannot be processed and participants will lose their course fee.

Please note

  • You can either bring your own bike to practice on (recommended) or we have a number of training bikes you can use.
  • All under 16 year olds must be accompanied by a paying adult
  • All courses run between 10am and 4pm

Where

Courses take place at our East and West Training Hubs:

Lee Valley Velopark, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Abercrombie Road, E20 3AB

3 Maxilla Walk, Notting Hill, W10 6NQ

When

To see all upcoming dates click below!