I’ll clean my bikes every week in the winter, every other week for the rest of the year unless I’ve been riding in the rain and picked up a lot of sludge. I always check wheels for true and tires for wear and debris at the same time. Otherwise I maintain things as needed. I keep an eye on pad and chain wear and try to replace ahead of schedule to minimize wear on rims , chainrings and cassettes. I replace bar tape at the end of the summer and renew cables and housing, if necessary, at the same time. (I once dropped a bike off at the shop for new cables and a new headset and let’s just say they were not impressed with the amount of sweat that had accumulated on the bars and steerer tube). One thing I learned to do after losing a pair of Silver bar end shifters to accumulated gunk is to hit the shifters with a spray of WD-40 every now and again, more often in summer. Keeps the cable end from corroding into the shifter and sweat from stopping the little spring inside from expanding. I also figured out how to get the casing off and clean the insides, but that’s only ever a measure of last resort.
On Sunday, November 15, 2020 at 7:03:16 AM UTC-5 Mark Roland wrote: > > > bjm.. wrote: > *I need to invest in a repair stand so I can do maintenance without > flipping my bike upside down and letting the grips and saddle take a > beating. * > > Meanwhile just throw down a moving blanket. > > If one of my bikes needs maintenance, I buy another one on craigslist and > fix it up with stuff from my spare parts box. > > On Saturday, November 14, 2020 at 10:22:00 PM UTC-5 bjmi...@gmail.com > wrote: > >> I took my front wheel off to see how gross the underside of my fender >> was. I almost gagged. >> >> I need to invest in a repair stand so I can do maintenance without >> flipping my bike upside down and letting the grips and saddle take a >> beating. >> >> >> On Saturday, November 14, 2020 at 8:07:01 PM UTC-6 Jason Fuller wrote: >> >>> Better than rotating the tires is getting a front/rear "pipeline" going: >>> once the rear is worn, put the front onto the rear and get a fresh front >>> tire. I learned this somewhat recently, and the reason being that it >>> minimizes the chance of a front tire blow-out, which is a lot more >>> dangerous than a rear. >>> >>> As for maintenance, I am of two minds: on the one hand, I'm a believer >>> in preventative maintenance, but on the other, sometimes things wear >>> themselves into a happy place, and just disassembling and re-assembling >>> during cleaning can upset the balance. >>> >>> With this in mind, I tend to leave things alone if they are running >>> smooth and quiet until they're not. BB's and headsets are probably happy >>> for 5+ years, but I'm trying to get the hang of checking my chain stretch >>> every six months or so and replacing it as soon as its worn so that my >>> cassette and chainrings can last 5+ years too. Similarly, ensuring I never >>> run the brake pads down to the metal bits is key to the longevity of the >>> wheels so I try to be real good about keeping tabs on those. >>> >>> I lube my chain as soon as it sounds dry (or starts to squeak) rather >>> than at any particular interval, and I put a few drops of lube in the cable >>> housing ends every so often (maybe 1-2 times per year). >>> >>> That didn't really answer the question... I suppose my answer is that I >>> consider "real maintenance" to be when something has lost function and >>> needs attention :D >>> >>> >>> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/0dfa4189-a415-4de0-9402-7ac3de04136dn%40googlegroups.com.
