Maintain a Touring Bicycle
Edited by Thor, Crystal, Eng
Hello and welcome to VisiHow. Today I'm going to show you how to carry out maintenance on your mountain or touring bike.
Steps
- 1To do this, I'm going to use a toothbrush. An old toothbrush is an excellent tool to use. We also need some very hot soapy water.The first thing you should do is clean your entire bike.
- 2In every area, we're going to get all that dirt off. While we're riding we get so much dirt accumulating, it's stuck in all the crevices and nooks. It can slowly cause breakages, causes parts not to work properly, things get rusty, so we're cleaning everything off. Everything we can find, the frame, all the components, make sure you really clean the chain, the cassette, the derailleur. We're really going to get in there and clean everything. This will help with rust. Try to clean all of the nuts and bolts as well.Get the toothbrush nice and wet and clean everything.
- 3That helps to get more dirt off. You need this to dry, you don't want a wet bike because then it will rust so you're going to clean everything off and dry everywhere. You will be able to tell the difference, it will start to shine again, look fresh and it will ride better and things won't break so often or so quickly.When you finish cleaning, take an old rag and dry everything off.
- 4The frame, the rack, all of the nuts and bolts can come loose when cycling. If you're cycle touring, and you're cycling bad roads, or even good roads, all the vibrations of your bags and the road will shake your bike. This will cause the bike to vibrate and cause the nuts and bolts to come loose. If you don't check this you might have a horrible surprise when you're going down a hill and something comes loose or flying off, then you will go flying off. Use some Allen Keys and get in there and check that everything is tight. If anything is loose, you'll be very happy you discovered it now and not while going 60 kilometers an hour while going down a steep hill.The next thing you need to do is to check all of the nuts and bolts.
- 5What we have here is a can of Multi Spray. It's kind of like WD 40. We're going to spray all of the nuts and bolts and all of the removable components. This will help to lubricate them, and to prevent rust. Preventing rust is very important when on the road because rust causes bikes to become brittle or causes things to break, then we'll need to spend more money to replace them. If you can prevent this you will save money and you will make your bike last longer. You can spray anything that moves, the brakes, the derailleur, spray all of the components.The next phase is to grease your bike.
- 6Check to make sure they're not frayed and that they're still intact. Check all your gear cables as well.You should also check your brake cables.
- 7To check your spokes, squeeze two spokes together, if they're loose then you know they need to be tightened. You want them to be very tight so they perform to the maximum capability. Check the front and rear wheel.Check your spokes.
- 8Have a look at your brake pads, see if they need to be replaced or if they need to be adjusted. If the brake pads are worn you can adjust them to a new position to be more effective.You also want to check how worn your brake pads are you can loosen them by pushing this in and lifting out the brake cable.
- 9You also want to check the tires, check them for glass, do this by rotating it around.
- 10If you have any questions or suggestions please leave them in the section below. Thank you for choosing VisiHow.This is how to perform bike maintenance on your mountain or touring bike.
Video: Maintain a Touring Bicycle
If you have problems with any of the steps in this article, please ask a question for more help, or post in the comments section below.
Comments
Article Info
Categories : Bikes & Motorcycles
Recent edits by: Crystal, Thor
