Basic Bike Maintenance
Clubnight 23rd February 2026
Andrew Rice
How to mitigate mechanicals and other issues thus keeping you and your bike fit for club runs and preventing long cold stops at the side of the road!
Your bike
Most of your bike is made from components that are consumables, ie that need replacing over time. How long before they need replacing depends on how well you look after them.
Your Bike - Cleaning your bike
Here are a couple of videos available on the British Cycling Website to show you how:
Washing - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hw3GwioTuT0
Degreasing and Lubricating the chain - https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/knowledge/bike-kit/get-started/article/izn20130419-How-to-lube-your-chain-0
Cleaning your bike is not about making it look pretty, it is about minimising the wear to vital components (and making it look pretty…) and thus making sure they work properly when needed.
It is a lot easier to both clean and inspect your bike for wear if you have the bike in a bike stand – easier on your back too!
Your bike - Cleaning and Inspecting your bike: the wheels; rim brakes
The wheels – often neglected but essential to clean regularly. The dirty water and muck we ride through over winter creates a great grinding paste that in combination with your brake blocks wear away your wheel rim!
Whilst they do last a long time the rim will eventually wear down to a thickness that can’t hold the pressure of the tyre and will collapse!
After cleaning your wheels inspect the braking surface for wear – some manufacturers have ‘wear’ strips in the braking surface to indicate the wear.
Your bike - Cleaning and Inspecting your bike; the brakes; rim brakes
The brakes and brake blocks: take the wheels out of the frame and clean both the working mechanism and the brake blocks. Pick out any embedded bits of flint from the brake blocks; these are chewing up your rim! Clear the channels (if present) to maintain efficient braking. The brake blocks often have wear indicators moulded into them – either the channels and/or a line on the edges.
As the blocks wear you may want to adjust the cable to minimise the amount of lever travel.
Your bike - Cleaning and Inspecting your bike: the wheels; disc brakes
Good news - your wheels don’t wear out. The rims will last for years except for damage from potholes and crashes
Bad news - the braking pads in your calipers wear out and these are difficult to inspect without taking them out. And they don’t always wear evenly depending on how the calipers are mounted. Eventually, even the discs wear to the point they need replacing.
Both pads and the discs can have their performance compromised by contamination with grit, oil and similar, ie when cleaning and oiling your bike!
Your bike -Cleaning and Inspecting your bike; the tyres
Having got your wheels nice and clean it is time to inspect your tyres for wear and damage. Round here fragments of flint get embedded in the tyre and at some point will cause a pinhole puncture – so pick them out with a small screwdriver when you clean the bike.
Inspect the tyre for cuts – flints again! Open cuts will get shards of flint in them and cause punctures. Consider a blob of Superglue or similar to close them.
Assess the level of wear, many makes of tyre have wear indicators. If you keep getting punctures that is also an indication you need new tyres!
To minimise the risk of punctures put 20-40ml of inner tube tubeless sealant in the inner tube which will seal small holes – you need inner tubes with removable valve cores to do this easily! Alternatively, be bold and go tubeless - if your wheels are tubeless ready..(and your frame will accommodate at least 28mm tyres)
Note: If you use tubes with removable cores always tighten the core into the valve stem both on the bike and the spares you carry with you – modern hose connecting pumps will unscrew the valve core when you take them off!!
Your bike - Cleaning and Inspecting your bike; the drivechain
I generally clean the drivechain first as the muck from it gets spread everywhere as you brush the components and a second wash when doing the rest of the bike won’t hurt!
Once clean you can check the various components for wear – replacing the chain regularly before it gets too worn will prolong the life of the cassette and chain rings.
If you are using a chain designed for ten or fewer gears, replace your chain as it nears the 0.75 percent mark. If you are using an eleven, twelve or thirteen speed chain, replace your chain once it has reached 0.5 percent wear. Note – 1% wear is greater than 1 whole link in length!
Generally, the cassette should be replaced every second or third chain. However, this is just one strategy of many. Another is to ride until it's unusable and replace both cassette and chain.
Your bike - Cleaning and Inspecting your bike; the drivechain
Poor gear changes and/or slipping are signs that one or more of the drivechain components may need replacing. When inspecting the cassette and chain rings take care to look across all of the individual rings/sprockets as they wear unevenly. Your favourite few gears wear out first! Note: Old, damaged and/or dirty cables can also be the root cause of poor gear changes/slipping.
Note how the individual tooth shape changes with wear and as a consequence, the space between the teeth
The mechanical aspects of changing the chain are relatively straightforward. The hard part is getting is getting everything ready, ie having the correct chain set to the correct length and the tools to do it.
First break the chain and then unthread from the drive chain.
The best and easiest way to determine your new chain length is to lay it down next to your old chain. Then, shorten your new chain to match the old (double check by counting the links).
Rethread the new chain around the chain ring, cassette and jockey wheels and then remake
Your bike - Changing the chain
Note; this process is made a lot easier if you only use chains joined by a Quick/Power link
Replacing your pedals is very much a personal choice as they will last a long time before they are unusable.
Your bike - Cleaning and Inspecting your bike; the pedals
Difficulty in clipping in may be a result of worn pedal bearings or loss of grease making the pedal ‘swing’ too easily. Some pedals can be regreased although this isn’t so common now.
Note: all types of pedal are ‘handed’! There is a Left Pedal and a Right pedal. They have different threads, ie they tighten by turning the thread forwards and undo by turning the thread backwards.
With the benefits of electronic gears comes the need to look after batteries
Your bike - Batteries!
The batteries powering your derailleurs will run out of charge at some point, usually when it is least convenient! Develop a habit of charging them regularly. Also be careful to store your bike without anything pressing on and actuating the levers - runs down the battery(ies)
Also, for external battery systems such as SRAM, check and keep clean and dry, the electrical contacts
With the benefits of electronic gears comes the need to look after batteries
Your bike - Batteries!
With electronic shifting the levers are now just a signalling system not a mechanical movement driving the derailleur via a cable. To send a signal to the derailleur regardless of whether the signal is wireless or via a wire connected to the derailleur there needs to be a power source. This is generally from a button cell battery mounted in the body of the lever somewhere under the hood.
Given the low discharge rate of this type of battery and the low power required for signalling, these batteries can last for several years depending on usage. They will, however, need changing eventually, so better to do it on a regular basis rather than at the roadside!
Button cell battery
Check that everything works as it should
With gears and brakes that are cable operated. There is always some part of the cable open to the muck that comes off the roads. Water, grit, dust etc can get into the cable sheath and can both accelerate the wear and make the operation ‘sticky’.
Cables don’t stretch – the end fittings/sheath wear or bed in!
A regularly service can make all the difference to how well your bike works.
Check that your wheels are ‘true’
For rim brake wheels: when you spin your wheels to check that the brakes don’t rub you may find that they touch in one or maybe two places and that the wheel seems to ‘wobble’. This means that the wheel is no longer ‘true’ , ie it is slightly buckled. To ensure efficient and effective braking the wheel needs to be re-trued or replaced (depending on how bent it is and how worn the rims are). Ignoring it may lead to the wheel collapsing.
Going through a pot hole is the main cause of out of true wheels. If you got a ‘snakebite’ puncture as a result of a pot hole there is a good chance the wheel has been knocked out of true as well!
For disc brakes, whilst there is not likely to be any impact on braking, however, a buckled wheel may still be on the way to a total collapse.
Your bike - Check that everything is installed properly; quick release wheels
Taking a wheel out of the frame – open the brake calliper quick release lever to increase the gap between the brake pads; this makes it easier to get the tyre past the brakes. Open the axle quick release lever through 180deg. Unscrew the nut opposite until properly loose. The wheel will now drop out or may require a slight thump to push it past the brake pads.
Putting the wheel back in the frame – reverse the above procedure but make sure that a) you have the axle fully seated in the drop outs, b) that you tighten the axle quick release and fully close the lever (and that it is positioned behind the fork) and finally, c) that you fully close the brake quick release lever
Note – it is often best to put the wheels back into the frame without fully tightening everything. Put the bike on the ground, loosen off the quick release and let gravity ensure you have the axle properly seated in the drop outs. Then full tighten the quick release.
Your bike - Check that everything is installed properly; through axle wheels
Through axles are effectively bolts through the frame of your bike holding the wheels in place. There are two main types; those with a lever attached to the bolt and those than need a tool- either a proprietary tool or an allen key.
It is vital you know what sort of through axles you have and, if you need one, have the tool required in your tool kit on the bike. Through axles don’t need to be cranked up hard, but they do need to be tight.
Tools you will need for basic maintenance
Your bike - Finally
Check that anything that is bolted, screwed, strapped or otherwise mounted to the bike hasn’t come loose with usage.
Mudguards and bottle cages often cause problems mid-ride when they come loose!
And last of all, check the tyre pressures and pump them up if needed; a track pump makes getting them up to pressure a lot easier.
Roadside Repairs - next month’s talk
Questions?
If your bike is now in this many pieces you’ve gone too far!