The majority of the following information is taken from an article which appeared in the December 2007 issue of BICYCLING Magazine. The article was authored by Ken Derry and the BICYCLING staff.
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Spend just a few minutes caring for your bike every day for a month, and you’ll end up with a shiny, smooth, safe, speedy ride.
1. Start off the month by giving your bike a light cleanup. This isn’t the full-on Silkwood shower – we’ll get to that. For now, use a damp cloth to remove the first layer of grime from the frame, rims, derailleurs, crank-arms, brakes, stem and handlebar. Wipe with a dry rag. Now you can touch your bike without getting filthy.
2. Check the frame for cracks. This is satisfying to do for two reasons: First, you probably won’t find any. Second: If you do, you just saved your life, or at least one of your collarbones. Cracks usually occur near welded areas, or where the frame is butted. Probably the most common spot is the underside of the downtube, just below the head tube. On carbon frames, it can be difficult to tell if you’re looking at a scratch in the clearcoat of a crack in the frame. General rule: If your fingernail can catch on the blemish, it might be a crack. If you have your suspicions, go to the bike shop tomorrow for a learned opinion.
3. Even if your frame checked out, head over to the bike shop today and get everything you might need for the month: two tires, three tubes, two sets of brake pads, a set of cables and housing for shifters and brakes, handlebar tape, degreaser, and frame wax. You might not use all this, but at least you’ll have spares.
4. All seatposts can bond to the frame – take five minutes and avoid this disaster. Mark the height of the seatpost with tape or a pencil, then remove it, wipe it clean and, if it’s steel or aluminum, smear a light layer of grease over the section that goes inside the frame. For carbon, apply a layer of Tacx Dynamic Assembly Paste, or Scott Carbon Grease, which, like regular grease, prevents the post from bonding to the frame but is gritty enough to stop the common problem of slippage.
5. Inspect each tire. Deflate the tube to about half its pressure, so the tire is still shaped but pliable. Rotating the wheel in the frame, manipulate the tire with your hands to expose cuts in the sidewalls or tread. If you find any that go either entirely through the tire, or are deep enough to make you anxious, replace the tire. Also, make sure you look for glass and thorns.
6. Look at the underside of your down tube: All those disgusting black warts are road tar that was thrown up onto your bike at some point and dried there. At first pass of the rag, removing them will seem impossible. Keep soaking them with diluted degreaser or a solution of equal parts dish soap and water, and scrub hard. That’s a noble 20 minutes you just spent doing something no one but you will ever appreciate.
7. It’s Obvious Day: Spin the wheels and see if they’re running crooked. Hold your bike 4 inches off the ground and drop it onto its tires, listening for rattles and clinks, then pinpoint them. Think back to all those clunks you’ve heard on your recent rides and catalog them. Think about how your bike has felt: Sticky steering? Loose feeling from the rear on descents? Write every thing down, then call the bike shop and make an appointment to bring your bike in midweek to check on those things. (Weekends are rush time.)
8. Scuff up your shoes today. Glazed brake shoes cause weak braking and impolite squeals. Use sandpaper, a file or an emery board to buff off the glaze and roughen up the pads. Also pick out dirt, grit or pieces of metal that have become embedded in the pad. If the pad has hardened so much you can’t scratch it with your fingernail, or if it’s worn past the indicator line, replace it.
9. Get two buckets, plus two sponges, a gob of rags and car-washing brush. Store the sponges, rags and brush in the nested buckets.
10. Detail-clean your derailleurs with degreaser. Saw the rag back and forth through open areas in the derailleur’s structure, or use cotton swabs. Dry with a clean rag, then apply one drop of light oil to each spring or pivot.
11. Clean the rims with a slightly abrasive pad, or just scrub heard with a rag soaked in dish soap – then rinse and dry. Over time, road spray and gunk from the brake pads coat the rim, which interferes with your stopping power.
12. It’s Chain Day: First check chain wear. Place the edge of a 12-inch ruler over the pin of one link. (It’s easiest on top of the chain, above the chainstay.) The 12-inch hash mark should sit over another pin. If it doesn’t, the chain is worn, which reduces shifting efficiency and causes excess wear on the rings and cassette; replace it. If the chain is fine, clean it using the method detailed later.
13. De-grime the crankset. Use a toothbrush and degreaser to clean the rings, then wipe with a dry rag. Clean between each tooth; if there’s dirt in there, it wears the chain.
14. Clean the cassette. Remove the rear wheel and hold it vertically but slightly slanted so the cassette angles toward the ground; this will prevent degreaser from dripping into the freehub. Spray the cassette with degreaser and use a shoebrush or an old toothbrush to scrub grit from between the teeth. It’s messy. Then use a screwdriver or awl to pick out weeds, string or anything else entwined around the cassette body. Hold or set the wheel horizontally and swipe a rag soaked with degreaser between the cogs, then over the face of the cogs, for a sparkly finish.
15. Tune up your bike computer: Remove it from the mount and clean the contacts on the mount and computer head with a pencil eraser. Cut the zip-ties holding the sensor on the fork, strip off the electrical tape or pad then clean off the grit lines. Replace the batteries to avoid a blackout halfway through next season. Put it all back together again. Use fingernail clippers to trim the zip-ties for a smooth edge.
16. Remove your pedals. (Remember to turn the wrench clockwise on the left pedal – the opposite of usual.) See later details for instructions on how to clean them.
17. Flip open your quick-release levers, unscrew them and pull them out of the axle (yes, you can do this with the wheel still in the frame, if you’re careful). Screw the cap all the way off, remove the two springs, then clean the rod with degreaser, wipe it dry with a rag, apply a light layer of grease, then rebuild and reinstall the whole thing. (Remember to orient the springs with the tiny side facing inward.) When was the last time you took care of your bike down to that level of detail?
18. Today you will get cranky: Slip the chain off the little ring and loop it over the bottom bracket. Spray degreaser on the rings. Then prepare to drive yourself mental. With a rag, clean the space between each tooth on the big and little rings. Spray on more degreaser. Then, using a fresh rag, floss all those hard-to-reach spots between the rings (like where they meet at the arms of the crank). Spray on more degreaser, then clean the faces, and the inside, of both rings. Painstaking—and satisfying, because you have just completed a task only about 2 percent of all cyclist ever do.
19. If you don’t own a torque wrench, borrow or buy one and check crank bolts, chainring bolts, stem clamp bolts, stem faceplate bolts and the seatpost binder bolt for proper tightness. You can find torque recommendations for every component on the manufactures’ websites.
20. Washing Day: Fill one bucket with clean water and one bucket with water plus dish soap or a degreaser. With one of your new sponges, soak your bike with plain water. Then soap up the second sponge and scrub the frame first, then wheels (don’t forget the spokes), then drive train. Soap the brush, then scrub the cassette, chainrings and rims. Soak the clean sponge and use it to sluice the soap off the bike. Soak it again, wring it dry, and go over the whole bike again, drying it. Finish drying with clean rags, using the last two or three to swipe the nooks and crannies dry. The entire wash takes 15 to 20 minutes.
21. Top of the month by polishing your gem to a sheen with the frame wax. Pretty isn’t it?
Taken from BICYCLING Magazine, December, 2007. Article by Natascha Grief.
CHAIN WITHOUT LUBE: A dry chain will let out an ear-piercing squeal and won’t shift gears smoothly. Eventually, it will rust and could snap mid-ride.
LUBE IT: Soak a clean rag with degreaser. With your bike in a work stand, grasp the chain with the rag as you backpedal to remove grime from the rollers and side plates. Repeat until the chain is clean. Then, dry the chain using a clean rag and the same technique you used to clean it. To apply lube, deposit a drop on the top of each link as you slowly backpedal for a few revolutions, so the lube has a chance to work its way in. Wipe off excel lube—if you don’t, it can attract more dirt to your chain. NEVER USE: motor oil or WD40 – it contains acids and particles of metal that can compromise the chanin’s strength and cause it to wear more quickly.
CLIPLESS PEDALS WITHOUT LUBE: Engagement and disengagement won’t be as smooth as it should be, and peals may become impossible to remove from your bike.
LUBE IT: If you use a clipless-pedal system that has a visible spring (the area where your cleats engage into the pedal), apply a drop of T9 every few rides to keep it rustfree and working well. Spread a coat of grease on pedal threads every time you install pedals so they’ll budge the next time you go to remove them. NEVER USE: Grease on the pedal springs. You’ll gum up the mechanism.