Fixing a puncture: inner tube versus tubeless
Both systems fail. Both can be mended on the kitchen floor. Here is what a workshop would actually do.
Est. 2026 · Workshop journal · UK
Bike talk from under the bench, not behind a till.
Cranky Bikes is a British home-mechanic journal for the person who rides every day and would rather fix their bike than replace it. Six honest workshop pieces to start. No shop talk, no "best of" lists, no sponsored nonsense.
On the bench this month
Adjusting V-brakes at home without new parts
Most British commuter bikes still run V-brakes. Most of those V-brakes are set up wrong. Here is how to put yours right in forty minutes.
When is a bicycle chain actually worn out?
Chains do not snap. They stretch. A chain changed on time is twenty pounds; one changed late is a hundred and twenty.
Bike lights in the UK: the law and what to actually buy
The legal minimum is older than most of the lights on the market. The common-sense minimum is quite a bit more.
Panniers for commuting: choosing and setting them up
A good pannier beats any rucksack on a daily ride. A bad pannier eats your heel. Here is how to tell them apart.
Registering your bike against theft: the half-hour that pays off
The police recover more bikes than you think. They just cannot return the ones that nobody can prove belong to anybody.
Why this journal
Most cycling writing is a shop window dressed as advice. We are not a shop. We do not have anything to sell, and we are not affiliated with any other site of a similar name. What we have is a workbench, a few decades of punctures between us, and an editorial preference for the plain answer.
If you can hold a 5 mm Allen key, you can look after a bike. Read the pieces in any order. If you spot a mistake, write in , our address is on the contact page.