You’re out, road bike cycling in the middle of the countryside, when something goes clunk, grind, or generally, wrong. It happened to me last night on my bike some 15 miles from home, and it turned out to be the derailleur not sitting correctly in line with the rear block. Quick fix: I dialled the knob on the back of the mech.. However, I wouldn’t have known what to do had I not thoroughly learnt about my bike and how to perform routine maintenance checks. Here are my top maintenance tricks you have got to know.
1) Change the inner tube.
You don’t have to carry a puncture repair kit with you and sit by the side of the road fixing your bike. You do, however, need to know how to change the thing quickly, and of course make sure you carry a spare – they’re not that heavy. When you get home you can fix it at your leisure. Each tube will take about 4 patches before it needs throwing away, so you can use it for a spare in the future.
2) Getting your chain back on.
Not as daft as it sounds, a jam anywhere on the chain drive will throw the chain, and you need to know how to get it back on. Following that is how to make sure that you can make any adjustments to the derailleur that you need to. So stopping the chain running off the top or bottom; getting it to change smoothly on indexed gears, all very important.
3) How to clean and lube your bike
This little trick will save you a fortune down the bike shop. You have to clean your chain once a month, more if it gets a lot of use. And you have to oil various cables and the like to keep them smoothly moving through the retainers and cable covers. The key point is though if you don’t clean particularly the chain and drive mechanism you will shorten its life drastically. As the oil attracts the dust it acts like a grinding paste. Rub your fingers over old oil on a chain then rub them together and you will see what I mean.
4) How to tighten and loosen your brakes.
All sorts of things contribute to changing brake effectiveness. Stretching cables, unbalanced screws, wheels that are going out of true. Adjusting brakes is perhaps the most important of the lot, because without them you could have a bad accident. Or worse. My worse hit was 20 years ago when the brakes on the front fell off – I had failed to check them – and I hit the back of a car. I learnt the hard way.
5) Learn how to “true” your wheel
Really this goes along with the brakes, but it’s a different discipline that should be mastered. Each time your bike hits a pothole it changes the spoke set up. And to adjust it isn’t a mystery, but does take a bit of practice.
If you want to know more about how to perform all of these and more key mechanical fixes, and you own an iPodm iPad or iPhone, then check out this bike doctor app review to discover why it is the ideal quick reference manual.