Bike Basics classes
Our Bike Basics course is free for everyone who buys an OCBC bike, and $20 for others.
This course is the “Owner’s manual” for your bike, showing you how to fine-tune bike fit, do easy maintenance and simple adjustments, and some quick fixes for common mishaps.
Bike Basics 1 Fit adjustments and no-tools safety checks
Bike Basics 2 Wheel care and how to fix a flat
Bike Basics 3 Brake assessment and adjustments, and cable maintenance
Bike Basics 4 All about shifting and maintenance of chain and gears
Tune up series
In the tune up class, you will “adopt” one of OCBC’s donated used bikes — either for the co-op’s use in one of our programs, or to purchase for yourself. Volunteering after each class is also strongly encouraged, to practice what you have learned each week.
You will learn how to do the following on a bike that’s in reasonable working order and not needing replacement parts other than tubes and tires:
Tune up 1 Assess the bike and prep it for service
Tune up 2 Cleaning, truing, and servicing wheels
Tune up 3 adjusting and servicing brakes
Tune up 4 Learn about drivetrain and perform a safety check
Overhaul series
This class covers basic principles and practices used to service, disassemble, clean, assess, and re-assemble or replace, as needed, any parts of any bike.
Overhaul 1 Handlebars, stems, forks, and headset bearings
Overhaul 2 Wheels, sprocket clusters, spokes, and hub bearings
Overhaul 3 Brake levers, cables, calipers, pads, and pivot posts
Overhaul 4 Cranks, chainrings, and bottom brackets
Overhaul 5 Shifters, cables, chains, and derailers
Public shop use
OCBC’s shop is open to the public for do-it-yourself repairs during all open hours, except 10am – noon on Saturday, when the shop is being used for our Shop Classes. There is a $5/hour cost to use the shop (which can be paid with volunteer credits) includes a workstation and stand, all supplies, and a professional assessment of the work to be done, if needed. To learn more, check out our Shop use page.
Youth Earn A Bike
Youth students can enroll in the Shop Classes (with an adult chaperone) to work on the bike they will earn. The student and chaperone pair will work together on one bike, so they will need to register as one unit and pay one fee of $100. Scholarships are available for the $100 tuition fee by filling out a pay-what-you-can form. Please email info@ohiocitycycles.org or call us at 216-830-2667 with questions.
Shop Manual
Our shop manual is designed to help you have a better time volunteering at the co-op. It’s much easier to have a good time if the job you’re doing is easier, and we hope to make it easier by providing explanations that you can use to learn new tasks or remember how to do ones you’ve done before. There are entries here for most of the things we do in the shop, but some basic bicycle repair tasks that are hard to learn without taking a class are left out. Here is the link.