How to Take Care of Your Bike and Maintain It.
Just like any other vehicle, maintaining your bike is very important for its lifespan and the general performance of your bike. Similarly, maintaining your bike also makes sure you’re safe and reduces the chances of accidents.
Improved winter maintenance could increase bicycle usability by 18% (Bergström, 2002). This makes it even more important to maintain a bike in the UK, given we have long wet and cold periods throughout the year.
In this blog from Tru-Tension, the experts in bicycle maintenance, we’ll go through some basic maintenance tips and a guide for making the process easier for you.
Inspecting and Checking Your Bike
Regular inspection of your bike is extremely important for assessing it so that you can make sure it’s up to speed. It also helps identify potential issues before they happen so you can address them.
Remember to check your bike before each ride to make sure you haven’t missed anything but make sure you you haven’t missed anything during your thorough inspections.
There’s a useful and super easy to remember checklist called the ABC Quick Check List. This check list can be used just for quick checks as well as thorough inspections.
The ABC Checklist
ABC stands for:
- Air
- Brakes
- Chain
Air refers to the air in your tyres. It’s always important to check your tyres are properly inflated. Even if your tyre isn’t pretty full, if it’s not the right amount pressure then it can potentially deflate or damage the valve of your tyre.
Push the palm of your hand against flat against the tyre, if there’s any give or it’s not firm enough for the terrain then consider pumping it up. If you have an electric pump, then the recommended PSI can usually be found on the tyre.
If you need to remove and replace a tyre, then our revolutionary tool the Tyre Lever will make this effortless.
Brakes are equally important when it comes to maintaining your bike and avoiding any issues. They are, as you can imagine, a lot more important for your safety and can most definitely save your life.
Your brakes should be tight enough so that when you pull them, they don’t touch your hand grips. Checking your brake pads regularly is important but not crucial as they usually last a long time. You can however check that they are secure during more frequent checks.
Chain refers to the actual chain and the gears of your bike. Remember to check that your gear changes are smooth, and chain is well lubricated. Check your chain and gears generally for wear and tear, rust or other small signs as the moving parts and gears are the primary reason for maintaining a bike.
Learn more about why rust is bad for a bike >
Brakes and tyres and easily replaceable but it’s not always the same case for the chain and gears. Take care of your chain with our purpose-built Monkey Much Chain Brush which is extremely useful for cleaning grime off.
Making Sure It’s Road Ready.
There are some additional steps you can take to make sure your bike is ready-to-go. Checking bolts are fastened is an often forgotten but essential part of maintaining your bike. Loose bolts can cause knock-on effects and in the case of the tyres and more important parts of the frame they could even cause your bike to fall apart while you’re still on it!
Checking brake lines and your gears should be done when checking these parts of the bike but they are certainly something to remember for a more thorough inspection of your bike.
Cleaning Your Bike
Keeping your bike to clean can be as paramount to your safety and cycling experience as some of the other tips touched in this guide.
This can mean generally cleaning your bike, something our Monkey Juice is extremely good for. For more through maintenance, clean parts that should be lubricated and re-apply fresh lubricant as frequently as necessary. Try to stay on top of any grime build-up and clean it frequently or make use of our handy Grime Guard
The most important part to clean is your drivetrain (front chain rings, rear cassette, rear derailleur and chain). We have an all-in-one Cycle Drivetrain Cleaner which is perfect for regular use as well as general maintenance.
See more in our guide on how to clean a motorbike >
What do I Need for Bike Maintenance?
We’ve already mentioned some must-haves for bike cleaning in this guide but now that we’ve covered everything; we’ll make some recommendations to hopefully make things easier for you.
If you already have a good idea of what, you’ll need then take a look at our bike maintenance products. If you need a bit more help then we have a wide range of bundles available on the same page.
These bundles are designed to cover everything you might need for regular checks and maintenance and usually include useful must-haves like our Muck Monkey Chain Brush.
We have a complete range of lubricants and have you covered no matter the conditions, terrain or weather. Our lubricants can be used in both dry and wet conditions. We even have more universal lubricants such as our All-weather bike lube and more specific options like Racing bike lube.
Learn which is better – Motorcycle Wax or Lube >
Bike Maintenance with Tru-Tension
So, there we have it – bike maintenance made-easy; if you’re still struggling to figure out what exactly you need then browse our wonderful and extensive range of products and bundles for some inspiration or ideas on what you might need.
Check out our online shop to see our full product range of bike maintenance equipment. For more support on how to use our tools check out our YouTube Channel.