Bike Maintenance...

Funkyzeit

Hi Folks,
Bought my lovely Bianchi 6 months ago for triathlons (on no not another one I hear you cry...)

Anyway long story short - havn't a breeze on what I should be doing in terms of maintenance/upgrading and I'm the most non-practical person EVER...so much so my wife put on my tri-bars...:o

Is there any courses (I'm in Cork) or recomended online resources to help me understand the workings of a bike, understanding parts and most of all servicing the bike myself ?

Slan

spurscormac

Try out these two sites for repairs info...

http://www.parktool.com/repair/

http://www.utahmountainbiking.com/fix/

As for upgrading, I'm not one to answer that - only started doing my own maintenance in the past few months.
I'll leave that to the experts.

BTW - you're a brave man to admit your wife had to install your tri-bars. :pac:

cunnins4

Yeah the parktool website's great for maintenance tips. You should keep the chain oiled, in case that wasn't obvious!, and as long as the brakes and gears're working efficiently you shouldn't have to be doing too much. One of these makes keeping the chain clean a lot easier. Use a proper "wet lube" from a bike shop (lube with teflon in it is the best afaik). Take the rear wheel off and clean the bits of dirt from between the teeth on the cogs at the back and likewise on the derailler jockey wheels. Doing this somewhat regularly will prolong the life of your chain and gears a good bit.

If the gears go a bit noisey look at the derailer adjustment page on parktool-that page'll bring you step by step getting them back into perfect adjustment. For brakes, simply look at them and have a think about what's going on-they're incredibly simple to keep in good shape. Don't let the brake pads wear down to the metal as that'll destroy the rims on your wheels. Brake pads just unscrew and you can buy replacement ones for less than a tenner and just bolt them back on. Try to keep the bike clean as it makes life easier, but don't clean it with a power hose! They can penetrate the bearings and you don't want water getting in there. A rag and a bucket of hot soapy water usually suffices. That's the most common stuff that you have to do regularly. After that you've the bottom bracket which can go after a fair bit of use-probably best off bringing it to a bike shop if that goes. Never had a problem with the headset so I don't think you'll have too much trouble there.

Other than that take good care of the bike in general and if anything sounds wrong ask here and you'll get the answer fairly quickly. Definitely have a good browse around the parktool website and you'll get a better feel for how the bike works.

Al Wright

An interesting book I thumbed through in a Dawson St., Dublin bookshop the other day is 'Zinn and the Art of Road Bike Maintenance (2nd Edition)' by Lennard Lennard Zinn. They also had the Haynes Book on bicycle maintenance but it was sealed in cellophane.
Another good source of information is the late Sheldon Brown's website http://www.sheldonbrown.com/home.html

TinyExplosions

+1 on the Zinn book -not easy to find (I had to get Chapters to order it in), but it goes through everything you could think of in mad detail, which makes fettling a lot easier!

kenmc

i'd recommend getting yourself a workstand as soon as you start getting into maintenance, makes things MUCH easier to work on, especially gears, brakes etc.

Funkyzeit

Thanks a mill for replies folks...if ya see someone cycling in Cork with his bars upside down, chain attached to the seat post and seat on sidewards say hello....

Thanks again seriously....