Getting Your Bike Ready for Riding Season

Pre-season is a great time to perform bike maintenance.

Now that the clocks have jumped forward 1 hour for Daylight Savings Time, we all have a bit more daylight available in which to possibly slip in a short post-work training ride.

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And with that, some of you can surely feel that urge to get out there on the weekends, and fire off your first long ride. Or maybe you're like me, and you have signed up for a 30 day cycling challenge to really jumpstart your fitness level for the new new cycling season. Either way, you are about to start putting some healthy miles into your legs and your bike. Your legs might be ready, but is your bike ready for it? Why not consider some pre-season maintenance now?

It's Time For Some Bike Maintenance

If you have been riding your bike outside through the winter, you probably have been riding in some less than enjoyable weather conditions (for both you and your bike). If you've been doing your winter training inside on a trainer, you've most likely picked up a bit of dust, some dog or cat hair, and even a bit of sweat just to make all of this a bit icky. Or maybe your bike has just been sitting in the garage, largely unattended for longer than you want to admit. In any case, your bike is probably in need of some love. Maybe a lot of love. Maybe a prayer or two.

This is a great time to take stock of your bike. It's the perfect time for you to do the maintenance... before you really kickoff your riding season. You certainly don't want to have a mechanical during one of your first rides. And the last thing you need is an injury or an accident caused by the improper functioning of your bike. Do yourself a favor, and start your maintenance work now. By starting now, you will not only be giving yourself enough time to get the needed parts (will that supply chain ever catch up?), but you'll also ensure that you have enough time to actually get those parts installed

Your bike is an investment, so take the time now to get your bike tuned and make sure it is ready to roll when you need it.

What Maintenance Do I Need?

That answer will be different for every bike. Where has it been ridden? How often has it been ridden? How many miles are on it? Were those easy miles, or were they hard miles? Was it in the rain? Snow? Or dirt? Was it a dry climate or humid climate? How has the bike been maintained? When was it last maintained? You get the idea. Every bike has its own story to tell. Regardless of its story... regardless of the type of life the bike has lived... a good maintenance process should be comprehensive and thorough enough to properly account any kind of history. Sure, knowing a bike's history might sway you to pay particular attention to certain areas of the bike, but ultimately, the history should not materially change the maintenance process. At least that is our viewpoint. And this philosophy is precisely the mindset behind our pre-season maintenance plan.

No digitized maintenance plan is perfect. Nor does any maintenance plan apply equally to every bike. And our pre-season maintenance plan is no different. We offer up here our maintenance plan to help you get started. Take what you need from our plan. Repeat what you find useful, and embellish anywhere you see fit. It is all about making it your own.

Here's our take on the pre-season maintenance plan

Whether you are a seasoned rider or new to cycling, having a well maintained bike is important for both performance and safety. Whether you already have your bicycle maintenance process hammered out, or you are here looking to get an idea of exactly what our process looks like, here we will give you our take on the pre-season bike tune-up in this 3 part series. We will share the steps we follow, share additional tips and recommendations, and even drop in a few of our favorite tools that might help you out along the way. We're excited for the upcoming riding season. And we're excited about getting our bike ready to carry us through to the next winter. We hope you come along and take a pass through this series with us.

Come back to this article as we release the subsequent articles in this series that round out our pre-season maintenance plan.

1. The Bike Wash (plus frame inspection).

   1. Tools and Supplies

   2. The Bike Wash (as detailed by Calvin Jones at Park Tools)

2. The Bike Inspection M check Checklist (plus bolts).

   1. 12 phase checklist that closely follows the methodology of the bicycle safety M check.

3. The Bike Maintenance (based upon Inspection assessment).

   1. What we always do.

   2. What we might need to do.

   3. What we keep an eye on.
      

Time To Get Your Bike Ready for Riding Season

We encourage you to get your hands dirty,,, literally. We hope you'll come along with us on this 3 part series detailing how we get our bike(s) ready for riding season. We start with a simple, but thorough bike wash from the perspective of one of the most well known bike experts around, Calvin Jones of Park Tools. Next, we encourage you to continue into our second article in which we share our Bike Inspection M check Checklist to help in taking stock of the state of your bike. We use this checklist as our way to methodically inspect any bike in order to get a true understanding of the machine. We believe that being systematic and thorough is the best way to find issues that might be lurking, and identify which components are in need of tuning, or even replacement. and even those that are in need of replacement. And lastly, our third article will encourage you to get that maintenance work done early. After having traveled along with us through the first two articles, you will have gone through a thorough bike wash... gone through a likewise thorough inspection of your frame, and reviewed all the mechanical systems of your bike. And this will propel you forward into the last article where we offer up our thoughts on the most common and important maintenance tasks that your bike is likely to need. We won't be teaching you exactly how that is done, there are hundreds of videos out there that can do that. But we will point you to the areas of your bike that are well worth your attention.

We believe in getting our hands dirty... it is the only real way to learn. It is always a good time for you to learn. But know your limits, Know when it is time to get a professional involved. That having been said, don't let this scare you away from trying things for yourself. You've gotta start somewhere, so get in there. Make the effort to get 1% better as a mechanic each time your work on your bike.

Come along for the ride with us in this 3 part series.

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