Tools at the ready

The time had come to start on the bike and after months of cleaning up the shed, organising my tools and taking a load of junk to the tip, I was finally ready to get going.  But where to start!?

After a few minutes of thinking, I thought “what the hell, it all needs to come apart anyway” and so dived straight in with spanner and screwdriver in hand.  Now of course I started with the easy things first, tax disk holder, seat and so on, but soon came to the conclusion that I was going to need a plan of attack before just going nuts with the tools, and being left with one giant mechano set and no instructions.

Zip-lock bags and a sharpie pen later, I was bagging and labelling all the items I came across which could be removed with ease (1 or 2 screws / bolts).  This lasted about 15 minutes before stepping back and taking a deep breath as it dawned that all the “easy” bits were now in bags – it was time for the big stuff.

Further scratching of the head made me decide to take the following actions in order:

1. Remove handle bar assembly (they were taking up valuable space in the shed being attached to the bike).
2. Remove steering column, front suspension and wheel assembly.
3. Remove engine, rear suspension and wheel assembly.
4. Remove any further ancillaries which these items prevented from before.
5. Start the cleaning and dismantling of these items.

With further spanners in hand… the work begins.