Bike Maintenance
The more you know about bike repair, the better; fixing problems yourself saves money. Additionally, if you can make repairs on the road and/or at home, you will save a lot of time running back and forth to a bike shop. Most importantly, your bike will be available to you for more riding.
The repair skill most needed is the ability to change tires. Guessing wildly, I would say I’ve changed a flat about every 500 miles. If you ride a lot, that can mean one or more flats every month. That frequency can seem daunting, but once you get good at it, you can change a tube in 10 minutes—not even losing enough time to make you late for work.
Commuter bike wheels should be equipped with quick-release hubs. What this means is that, instead of loosening the hub nuts with a wrench, all you have to do is flip a lever. This is a big time-saver for changing flats, since the wheel must come off the bike for this repair.
Carry one or two spare tubes with you when you ride. Make sure the tubes are the right size for your wheels. Also, make sure the tubes you buy have the same kind of valve stem as those already on your bike. Many pumps adapt to the two different stem types (Shrader and Presta), but it’s easier to not have to change the pump head around all the time…and easier not to have to think about it, especially when you’re in a hurry. You could patch tubes on the road but patches can have a high failure rate, especially when you’re trying to apply them in or cold weather. Plus, it takes longer to patch a tube than to replace it with a new one. You can still carry a patch kit as back-up to the tubes. Patch your tubes at home, where it is warm and dry, and you’re not in a hurry.
Equip your bike with a frame pump. The model needs to be capable of providing enough pressure for the tires you’re using. Get a pump that has a built-in pressure gauge. Most commuter tires call for 70psi, though road bike tires typically call for 110-120psi. Tires will indicate on their sidewalls their recommended air pressure.
The other tool needed for changing tires is the tire lever. Sometimes tire levers are made of metal, sometimes they are made of a stiff plastic. Their purpose is to enable the removal of a tire from a wheel rim and then after the tube (or tire) has been changed, to replace the tire again.
Whenever you get a flat, take a good look at the tire. If the sidewall is ripped open, don’t bother trying to replace the tube. It’s time for you and your bike to take a walk. Either that or give someone a call who will come and collect the two of you. Thankfully, sidewall blow-outs are pretty rare.
What happens all the time, though, is that tires pick up chunks of metal or glass. If we were all conscientious this kind of thing would be rare. Well, sorry. There are plenty of people who think the world is a dump, and who treat it as such. Whenever you get a flat, once you have taken the tire off the wheel and the tube out of the tire, use you fingers to test the inside of the tire. Run the tire around a couple of times with a couple fingers feeling the inside, especially the area where the tire meets the road. Take your time. Sometimes those shards are very sharp. You don’t need a puncture in you finger, on top of the punctures in your tire and inner tube. If you don’t find a chunk of something, you should be good to install a new tube. If you do find a chunk, remove it from the tire. Make sure you get all of it, especially if it’s glass. If you leave some of the glass in the tire, chances are, it will be driven into the new tube, giving you another flat.
Sometimes a piece of glass is tough to get out. You might be able to push it out with a tire lever. I also recommend you carry a bike multi-tool. These tools are compact and relatively light. They usually include a couple screwdriver ends, hex nut drivers, maybe a knife edge, maybe a chain tool. In any case, one of the tools on this set will provide the help you need to get stubborn glass out of the tire.
Some tires come with kevlar liners or some other puncture resistant material. Such tires are more expensive and they do not eliminate all punctures but they are worth the extra money. In my estimation, good, puncture resistant tires reduce the number of flats to 1/3 the incidents. If this is true, the extra cost of the tire is covered by the savings in buying tubes and patches. In any case, you have saved yourself a lot of interruptions.
When installing a tube, first pump the tube up enough so it is flabby but holding its doughnut shape. Place it in the tire. Now lay the two on top of the wheel, which you have laid on the ground. Line the nozzle up with the hole in the rim and put the nozzle through the hole. Try to keep the nozzle pointing directly at the hub of the wheel as you put the tire back on the wheel. Work around the tire, pushing one bead of the tire onto the rim. Usually the first bead (one side of the tire) will go on without using a tire lever. Now work around a second time, pushing the second tire bead into the rim. Typically, when you get 75% of the bead in the wheel, the going gets tough. This is when the tire lever comes in handy. Use one lever at a time and work the last bead onto the wheel. Be careful not to pinch the tube between the tire lever and the rim. Doing this could cut the tube. Keep the tube tucked inside the tire and you should be fine. Eventually the tire will pop into place. Take a quick look at both sides of the wheel and make sure the tire appears to be properly seated. Pump up the tube to about 3/4 pressure and then take another look to make sure the tire is still properly seated in the rim. If so, go ahead and fill the tire to its recommended pressure. Then put the wheel back on the bike.
Pick up all your junk. Put your tools back where they belong. Put the pump back on the bike. Collect everything, including stuff you intend to throw away. I know a commuter who carries a whisk broom and a dustpan. Whenever he sees a smashed bottle he stops and cleans up the whole mess. You don’t have to be that extreme but you have to follow the commuter’s code: “Leave No Junk Behind”.
Another good, cheap, and small tool to carry is a spoke wrench. After miles of rough riding, spokes can loosen, or wheel rims can just get boinked out of shape. Spokes connect wheel hubs and wheel rims. They generally terminate at the center of rims but their other ends alternate to the two sides of the hub. The job of the spokes is to keep the rim round (looking at the wheel from the side) and flat (looking at the wheel from front or back). Usually the first sign a wheel is not true is that the rim rubs a brake pad when you are not applying the brake. You don’t want to ride down the road with your brakes fighting against you.
From a different perspective, the brake shoes are useful for gauging how true the wheel is. When you adjust spokes on the road, you can spin the wheel and judge the effectiveness of your adjustments by seeing whether the rim stops rubbing the brakes. Spokes enter specially shaped nuts that rest inside of the rim. The nuts are designed to be turned by the spoke wrench.
Four things to keep in mind: one is that the nuts tighten clockwise, the same way most mechanical devices tighten. But the location of the nut inside the rim can be disorienting. Think of the spoke as a jar, and the nut as the lid of the jar. The second thing to keep in mind is that when you tighten one spoke, you should always loosen the opposing (or nearest) spokes about the same amount. Think how one spoke is connected to one side of the hub. When you tighten that side, you pull the rim in that direction. Loosening the oppositional spokes allows for that pulling to happen. Make small adjustments. Turn a nut half a revolution, then move on to the next spoke. Minor adjustment to the rim shape is all that is normally needed. Finally, don’t torque hard on the spoke nuts. A spoke that is too tight is prone to break. You can replace your own spokes, too, but that’s a little more involved, and it is not something you want to do on the road.
The last basic maintenance you ought to know is simply oiling the chain. Oiling the chain will prolong its life, improve energy transfer between you and the bike, and, most importantly, spare you from the obnoxious sound of a squeaking chain. There are lots of fancy tools for cleaning a chain. I don’t see the point in them. Do this at home: either buy a bike stand, make a cheap one out of two bookshelf L-brackets covered with an old inner tube (to protect the bike frame), or simply turn the bike upside down. Slowly spin the crank so the chain spins. Drip oil onto the chain. Run the chain around a couple times. Then take a rag and loosely hold onto the chain as you spin the crank again. You want the oil to penetrate the chain joints but you don’t want oil dripping off the chain. Run the chain around a number of times. Do your best to remove all the oil. Don’t worry, you won’t be able to remove the oil from all those inner places the oil needs to be. Excess oil will attract dirt and grit, which will serve to wear out the chain faster.
So that’s it for the basic maintenance. Master these skills and you will be in control of 90% of mechanical failures that keep your bike off the road.
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