Bicycle Maintenance Part 1
The Complete Guide to Bicycle Maintenance: Skills Every Cyclist Actually Needs
Bike maintenance has gotten complicated with all the YouTube tutorials and forum debates flying around. Carbon torque specs, tubeless sealant brands, press-fit bottom bracket standards — it’s enough to make you want to just drop the bike off at the shop and forget about it. But here’s the thing: you don’t need to be a mechanic to keep your bike running well. A handful of fundamental skills covers 90% of what matters, and most of it takes less time than making coffee.
Drivetrain Maintenance
Your drivetrain is where pedaling force becomes forward motion — chain, cassette, chainrings, and derailleurs all working in concert. It’s also where neglect costs you the most money, because worn parts eat other parts alive.
Chain Care
A clean, properly lubed chain is quieter, shifts better, and lasts dramatically longer. I clean mine every three or four rides, or right away if I’ve been caught in the rain. The process is simple: hit it with degreaser to strip old grime, let it dry, then apply fresh lube.
Speaking of lube — wet lube handles rain but picks up dirt like crazy. Dry lube stays cleaner but washes off the moment it gets wet. Wax-based options are the current darling, and they genuinely work well, but they require more initial prep. Whatever you pick, less is more. Apply a drop per link, let it soak in, and wipe the excess off the outside of the chain. If your chain is dripping lube, you’ve used too much.
Check chain wear with a chain tool every month or so — replace before you hit 0.75% elongation. I actually swap mine closer to 0.5% because I’ve learned the hard way that a $30 chain replacement beats a $150 cassette-and-chain replacement every time.
Cassette and Chainring Inspection
Worn cassette cogs develop this distinctive shark-fin shape where the teeth get hooked instead of symmetrical. You can actually see it if you look closely. When that happens, a new chain will skip on the worn teeth under load — super annoying and kind of dangerous during hard efforts. Your most-used gears (usually two or three favorites in the middle of the cassette) wear fastest.
Chainrings show similar wear patterns. If your front shifting has gotten sloppy despite fresh cables and proper adjustment, take a close look at those chainring teeth. Hooked or visibly uneven teeth mean it’s time for replacements.
Brake System Maintenance
Brakes are the one thing on your bike where “good enough” isn’t good enough. You need full stopping power every single time, in all conditions. Fortunately, keeping them dialed isn’t hard.
Rim Brake Adjustment
The pads need to hit the rim squarely — full contact across the braking surface, with no part touching the tire (that’ll shred your sidewall in a hurry). Cable tension controls how the lever feels; barrel adjusters on the brake caliper or lever let you take up slack as cables naturally stretch over time. If a cable is frayed or kinked, don’t ride on it. Replace it. Cable failure mid-descent is not an experience you want.
Disc Brake Care
Disc brakes need clean rotors and properly aligned calipers. Contamination is the enemy — oil from your fingers, spray lube overshoot, even some frame polish can ruin pad performance and cause that awful squealing sound. Clean rotors with isopropyl alcohol and try not to handle the braking surfaces with bare hands.
If your hydraulic brake levers start feeling spongy or the bite point moves around, there’s probably air in the lines and you need a bleed. This varies a lot by brand — Shimano, SRAM, and Campagnolo all use different procedures and fluid types. It’s a learnable skill, but honestly, for your first few times, having a shop show you the process is worth the cost.
Wheel Maintenance
Wheels take more abuse than any other component on the bike. Potholes, curbs, gravel — they absorb all of it while spinning at high speed. A little attention here goes a long way.
Tire Care
Check your tires before every ride. Run your fingers around the tread and sidewalls feeling for embedded glass, thorns, or wire. These things work themselves deeper with every mile, and catching them in the garage prevents a flat 20 miles from home. Look for cuts in the sidewall or any bulging — both mean the tire’s structural integrity is shot and it needs replacing.
Pressure is its own topic (we’ve got a whole separate post on that), but the short version: heavier riders need more, wider tires run lower, and the maximum pressure stamped on the sidewall is almost never the right number to use.
Wheel Truing
Wheels that wobble side to side affect braking, shifting, and how the bike feels overall. Minor wobbles are fixable by adjusting spoke tension — tighten spokes on one side, loosen on the other, working gradually with quarter-turns rather than cranking on individual spokes. If you’ve never done it before, it’s one of those skills that’s weirdly satisfying once you get the hang of it.
Even spoke tension matters. One loose spoke puts extra stress on its neighbors, which can lead to a cascading failure — broken spokes, bigger wobbles, eventually a taco’d wheel. If you break a spoke, replace it promptly and check the tension on the ones nearby.
Bearing Maintenance
Your bike has bearings in the headset (steering), bottom bracket (cranks), and hubs (wheels). Modern sealed cartridge bearings are fairly low-maintenance compared to old cup-and-cone designs, but they’re not zero-maintenance.
Headset Check
This takes about five seconds: squeeze the front brake and rock the bike forward and back. Feel or hear a clunk? That’s a loose headset, and it’ll get worse fast. Usually it just needs tightening, which is straightforward on most modern stems — loosen the stem bolts, snug the top cap, retighten the stem. If the clunk persists, the bearings themselves might need attention.
Bottom Bracket Service
Bottom brackets live in a miserable environment — right down at the bottom of the frame where water, grit, and road spray all concentrate. Creaking during pedaling is the classic symptom that something’s off down there. External bearing designs (like Shimano Hollowtech) are fairly easy to inspect by removing the cranks. Press-fit bottom brackets… well, those are a whole different conversation and honestly one of the more frustrating standards in modern cycling. They sometimes creak even when they’re fine.
Pre-Ride Checks
The ABC Quick Check — Air, Brakes, Chain, and Quick releases — takes thirty seconds and catches the stuff that would otherwise ruin your ride. We’ve written about this in detail separately, but the short version: squeeze your tires, squeeze your brakes, spin the cranks, and make sure your wheels are secured. Do it every time until it’s automatic. Your future self, the one who isn’t walking home in cycling shoes, will appreciate it.
Building Your Skills Over Time
You don’t need to master all of this at once. Start with chain cleaning and tire checks — those are the highest-return maintenance tasks for the least effort. Gradually add skills as you get comfortable. Every task you can handle yourself means fewer trips to the shop, faster turnaround when something needs attention, and a better understanding of how your bike actually works. That understanding makes you a better, more confident rider on the road.
Part 2: Advanced Care
The Complete Guide to Bicycle Maintenance: Skills Every Cyclist Actually Needs
Alright, so you’ve got the basics down from Part 1 — chain cleaning, brake checks, tire inspections. Now let’s get into the stuff that takes your maintenance game from “I can keep my bike running” to “I rarely need the shop for anything.” These skills build on the fundamentals, and while some require a bit more investment in tools, the payoff in saved shop bills and riding confidence is significant.
Drivetrain Maintenance
In my experience, this is where most cyclists either level up or decide they’d rather just pay someone. Fair enough — but if you’re willing to get your hands dirty, drivetrain work is incredibly satisfying when everything clicks into place (literally).
Chain Care
Beyond the basic clean-and-lube routine from Part 1, there are a few next-level chain practices worth adopting. Hot wax immersion, for instance — where you melt paraffin wax with additives and dip your chain — delivers genuinely incredible drivetrain silence and longevity. It’s more upfront hassle (slow cooker, multiple chains in rotation), but once you’re in the rhythm, it’s oddly therapeutic. And the results speak for themselves: cleaner drivetrain, longer chain life, quieter ride.
If you’re running a dedicated wax setup, keep two or three chains in rotation. Swap to a fresh one every few hundred miles, re-wax the used one in a batch. The initial setup costs maybe $40-50 in wax and a thrift store slow cooker, and it pays for itself within a season through extended component life.
For everyone else sticking with drip lube: the real key is consistency. A chain that gets cleaned and lubed every 200 miles will outlast one that gets neglected for 500 miles and then over-lubed to compensate. Regularity beats intensity with chain care.
Cassette and Chainring Inspection
Once you’ve been checking your cassette regularly, you start developing an eye for wear. The difference between “this has some miles on it” and “this needs replacing now” becomes obvious. A new chain on a borderline cassette is a good test — if it skips under load in your most-used gears, the cassette’s done. If it runs smooth, you’ve got some life left.
Chainring bolts, by the way, are worth checking periodically. They can loosen over time, especially on aluminum rings with alloy bolts. A loose chainring bolt causes an annoying creak that’s easy to mistake for a bottom bracket issue. Quick check with an Allen key every few months saves you chasing phantom noises.
Brake System Maintenance
At the advanced level, brake maintenance is less about “are they working” and more about “are they working optimally.” The difference between adequate brakes and properly set up brakes is night and day, especially on long descents or in wet conditions.
Rim Brake Adjustment
Toe-in is the advanced move here. Instead of having pads perfectly parallel to the rim, you angle the front edge of the pad slightly inward so it contacts first. This eliminates brake squeal and actually improves modulation. The difference is subtle — maybe a millimeter of offset — but it changes how the brakes feel. Use a business card as a spacer at the trailing edge of the pad when you’re setting it up.
Cable tension is about finding the sweet spot between too loose (mushy lever, poor modulation) and too tight (pads dragging on the rim). With fresh cables and housing, you want about a centimeter of lever movement before the pads engage. As cables stretch over the following weeks, use the barrel adjuster to take up slack rather than redoing the whole cable.
Disc Brake Care
Bleeding disc brakes is genuinely learnable at home. Shimano uses mineral oil; SRAM uses DOT fluid. Don’t mix them up — wrong fluid will destroy the seals. Each system has its own bleeding procedure, but the principle is the same: push clean fluid through the system to displace old fluid and any trapped air bubbles. A good bleed kit for your specific brand costs $20-30 and pays for itself after one or two home bleeds versus shop visits.
Rotor maintenance is straightforward but important. If rotors develop a warp (you’ll feel a pulsing sensation when braking), they can sometimes be straightened with an adjustable wrench and careful bending. Minor warps, we’re talking here — anything severe means replacement. And when you do replace pads, bed them in properly: twenty or so progressively harder stops from moderate speed. Skipping this step leads to glazed pads and weak braking.
Wheel Maintenance
Wheel work is where home mechanics often feel most intimidated, but basic truing and hub service are well within reach with the right tools and patience.
Tire Care
For the advanced crowd: learn to patch tubes rather than just replacing them. A proper patch is as reliable as a new tube and costs pennies. Keep a patch kit in your saddle bag alongside a spare tube — the tube gets you rolling quickly, the patches extend your options if you flat twice on one ride (it happens more than you’d think).
If you’re running tubeless, get comfortable with the sealant maintenance cycle. Sealant dries out every two to four months depending on conditions. Top it off regularly, and every six months or so, break the bead and clean out the dried latex chunks before adding fresh sealant. Neglecting this is how you end up with a flat that won’t seal when you’re 30 miles from the car.
Wheel Truing
A proper truing stand makes this job dramatically easier, but you can do basic truing with the wheel in the frame using your brake pads as a reference. The key is patience: quarter-turns on spoke nipples, always working both sides of a wobble rather than just tightening one spoke and hoping for the best. Tighten on one side, loosen on the opposite side, and check your progress frequently.
Spoke tension meters are a nice upgrade if you’re doing this regularly. Even tension across all spokes is more important than achieving any specific tension number. A wheel with even tension at 100 kgf is stronger than one that varies between 80 and 120 kgf. Your hands can learn to gauge tension by feel over time — pluck each spoke and listen for consistent pitch around the wheel.
Bearing Maintenance
Bearings are the unsung heroes of your bike. When they’re good, you never think about them. When they’re bad, everything feels wrong.
Headset Check
Beyond the basic clunk test, periodically pull the fork and inspect the bearings directly. Sealed cartridge bearings should spin smoothly with no rough spots. If you feel any notchiness or grinding, they’re done. Replacement is straightforward — press out the old, press in the new. A headset press is the proper tool, but many shops will press bearings for a nominal fee if you don’t want to buy one.
Bottom Bracket Service
External threaded bottom brackets (BSA standard) are the easiest to service at home. A bottom bracket tool, which is specific to your brand, threads them in and out. Clean the threads, apply grease or anti-seize, and torque to spec. The whole job takes maybe fifteen minutes once you’ve done it a couple times.
Press-fit bottom brackets are more involved and sometimes genuinely frustrating. If yours creaks despite everything you try — retension, grease the interface, replace the bearings — you’re in good company. It’s a known issue with the standard. Some riders eventually convert to threaded solutions using adapter kits, which often solves the problem permanently.
Pre-Ride Checks
At the advanced level, expand your pre-ride check beyond the ABC basics. Give the handlebars a twist to check stem bolt tightness. Squeeze the saddle to check rail clamp. Bounce the bike gently and listen for any rattles or clicks. These take seconds and catch issues that the basic check misses. Think of it as the extended warranty version of the quick check — same principle, slightly wider net.
Building Your Skills Over Time
The beautiful thing about bike maintenance is that it compounds. Each skill you learn connects to others, and eventually you develop an intuitive sense for your bike’s condition just from riding it. A subtle change in shifting feel tells you the cable needs tension. A slightly different brake sound means pads are wearing. You start catching issues before they become problems, and that’s when maintenance shifts from being a chore to just being part of riding. Every wrench turn you do yourself deepens your connection to the machine and makes you a more self-sufficient cyclist on the road.
