Hey y'all!

Since I started working on bikes, I've picked up a few tricks and come up with a few myself. Here's one that I tried recently.

I came home from a months holiday down the country on Sunday. I left two parts bikes sitting outside, and when I got home nuts and bolts had seized on them. WD40 partially worked, but it was still a struggle.

Then I remember hearing that cola is meant to be good at loosening up rusted and seized bolts. I was a little skeptical, but went out to buy a could bottles of various sodas. My dad suggested I try beer, because he thought that any carbonated drink would work. I set up four different containers with four different drinks. Cola, diet cola, beer and fizzy water.

I let the most rusted amd seized bolts marinade for two nights, and tried to loosen them earlier. And amazingly, the cola and beer bolts worked! The diet cola bolts worked after a blast of WD40, and the fizzy water bolts remained the same.

I'm not quiet sure why the cola and beer worked so well, maybe it was the carbonation process.

Does anyone have any theories as to why they worked?

I discovered another rookie repair yesterday when I got a new junk bike.

I had lights and reflectors that I needed to fit on the bike, but didn't have the appropriate bolts and nuts to hold the lights to the frame. So instead I used zip ties.

They're one of the most useful and essential things I have in my garage.

I've used them to hold things to bike frames, and two years ago also put them on my bike tires to add grip to the tires during the snow.