How to Fix Your Bike on the Trail | Get Out: A Guide to Adventure

Hey, I'm Eric Porter. I'm a professional mountain biker, and I'm going to show you how to fix your bike in the field. Bikes are better than they've ever been, and not much stuff breaks anymore. But things are going to happen, and you need to know how to take care of it yourself, so you can get home.

Every now and then, you'll break a chain while you're riding. Sometimes it's just because they're old, or assembled wrong, or just grabbing too many gears on the layup of a steep climb. If you break your chain, you're going to want to pull off to the side of the trail, so you're not in the way, and pull out your tools.

On a multi-tool, they almost always have a chain tool as part of it. I like to use the Design multi-tool that has basically everything. I get the biggest one that they have because I go on big backcountry rides, and I never know what I'm going to need.

What you're going to want to do is take off the broken link, so you can get a clean reattachment in there. If you have a quick link, you can simply put it together, pull it tight, and it'll pop back in as you're riding. If you don't have that, you're going to need to push a pin out to the outer plate and then put the chain back together. Then, drive the pin back through to the right amount.

There are three things that can cause a flat tire. Those are punctures, so that's from like a thorn or something like that; there's a tear or rip in the sidewall; and then there's pinch flatting, which is where you just basically smash a hard edge really hard, and it pinches your tube so hard that it can puncture.

We're going to need to pull off your tire, and you're going to want to feel all the way through and see what caused your flat. So, if you feel like a thorn sticking through, you need to get that out of there before you put a new tube in and continue riding.

If you ran over something super sharp and you actually sliced your sidewall or your tire, you need to prevent the tube from pushing through that hole in the sidewall. A lot of times, I'll use a cliff bar wrapper, and you can put that in there and cover the hole in the sidewall. Then you can put a tube back in, and it'll keep the tube from popping back out.

Once you get practice stuff at home—fixing a chain or changing a flat tire—get out there and have some fun in the backcountry. [Music] [Music]