Singlespeed & Fixed Gear - How YOU maintain your bike

How do you guys maintain your bike? what do you do? how? when?

I keep my tubes properly inflated, and check for tire wear regularly. Every once in a while, I'll clean my chain and lube it. Maybe once a year I'll re-lube the headset and bottom bracket.

I change bar tape at the slightest sign of wear, however. I hate bad bar tape.

How do you guys maintain your bike? what do you do? how? when?

not as well as i should. i should probably clean my chain since it rained a few times these last weeks....

No periodic maintenance for me. When something breaks, I fix it.

kool

clean chain when it gets noisy, replace tape when it gets messed up, fiddle with things, and once in a while a full strip and clean

I used to have a cup and cone rear hub that didn't seal well so I'd have to clean and repack it wayy too often because it would get crunchy all the time. Now that I laced up a sealed bearing hub to the rear, I've just been cleaning my chain/drive train when it seems especially dirty.

I used to have a cup and cone rear hub that didn't seal well so I'd have to clean and repack it wayy too often because it would get crunchy all the time. Now that I laced up a sealed bearing hub to the rear, I've just been cleaning my chain/drive train when it seems especially dirty.

yeah same here. i seriously would take my hub apart once every 2 weeks or something stupid like that.

i keep my tubes inflated, check my tires often.
my rear hub sucks, so i have to clean and pack it pretty often. i take my pedals apart and clean / lube them a lot cause i get a lot of satisfaction from it.

and i change my tape out pretty often. i like doing that.

well a lot of people are drawn to/use a fixie cause of the fact that you don't have to do a lot of **** to them. especially brakeless. i lube my chain when that **** sound dry. i put air in my tires. i proofide me brooks. i wipe my **** down when it's especially hideous. as far as bar tape just use cloth; that stuff lasts for a long time, provided you don't wreck all tha tyme. i love repacking hubs, doing it sunday with coffee and NPR on the radio... it's total weekend fantasy. out of boredom and as a rule, i always tinker, and my **** is always tight and right, k?

what do you guys mean buy "pack my hubs"

To (re)pack one's bearings means to clean and (re)grease the bearings and races of a hub, bottom bracket, or headset.

As for maintenance, love your bike. If you know what it looks and sounds like when it's running well, you'll know what you need to do where in order to make sure it stays that way. If you always think about newer, cooler stuff that you can fix your bike up with, it seems to make it easier to keep what you've got in good shape. Like women.

/objectification.

unless its a really short ride, i air up my tires whenever i go out. its kind of an ocd thing for me. other than that i lube my chain once a month or so, and spin my wheels once a week to make sure they're still true. besides those, I just spend the time that i would be fidgeting with a more complicated bike riding instead...

You're supposed to maintain these things?!?!?! I spend too much time working on my mtn bikes. I barely fill the tires unless they are rediculously flat, I think I lubed the chain once so far. I got this thing so I could ride to/from work and not have to worry about it.

i admit, i'm a procrastinator... i have brakes; recently they'd worn down so much that the screws started contacting my rims. big whoops!!

i know i need to replace my chain and cog, but i'm trying to put off spending the $$. however, this reminds me, it's over-due for a lubing. better do it NOW before i forget again.

oh and i've been having an argument lately about how often you really NEED to wipe a frame down. when you first get a bike, you want to shower with it every day... then it's like, "eff that, it's only going to get dirty again... maybe a layer of crap will protect it from the salt on the streets...."

chain gets noisy clean it tires get low fill em everything else is under warranty
wash it every now and then
replace the chain every three months or so

phils don't need maintence
neither do chris king headsets

Maybe once a month I spray GT85 on the drivetrain and hubs

This time of year I give my bike a bath more often. There's a bit of road salt out there (Toronto salts the bejesus out of the roads in winter) and my bike has the quintessential crappy Italian paint job.

Other than that, checking the chain tension and a very occasional true check on the wheels from dropping off curbs is about it. When I had a Suzue Junior hub, I was repacking it every three months. As per Retems comments, I find better components have a better half life. But check the drive train periodically. I couldn't figure out why I had trouble tensioning my chain.

I yell at mine. it's pretty submissive.

well a lot of people are drawn to/use a fixie cause of the fact that you don't have to do a lot of **** to them. especially brakeless. i lube my chain when that **** sound dry. i put air in my tires. i proofide me brooks. i wipe my **** down when it's especially hideous. as far as bar tape just use cloth; that stuff lasts for a long time, provided you don't wreck all tha tyme. i love repacking hubs, doing it sunday with coffee and NPR on the radio... it's total weekend fantasy. out of boredom and as a rule, i always tinker, and my **** is always tight and right, k?

yeah, npr, coffee, an oily rag, a bike...yeah....yeah. might have to do that today.

This time of year I give my bike a bath more often. There's a bit of road salt out there (Toronto salts the bejesus out of the roads in winter) and my bike has the quintessential crappy Italian paint job.

Other than that, checking the chain tension and a very occasional true check on the wheels from dropping off curbs is about it. When I had a Suzue Junior hub, I was repacking it every three months. As per Retems comments, I find better components have a better half life. But check the drive train periodically. I couldn't figure out why I had trouble tensioning my chain.


that is pretty sweet how many miles on that dura-ace?

On my winter extreme weather fixie I've had bb bearing balls split in half from salt corrosion. After new balls and a repack I now have a 3" lexan shield under the downtube and bb shell.

i just try to keep oil on and rust off.....its all reactive maintenance

how do you guys clean your chains? oil? degrease? how? what kind?

how do you guys repack your hubs

how do you guys clean your chains? oil? degrease? how? what kind?

how do you guys repack your hubs

www.sheldonbrown.com
www.parktool.com

Asking which degreaser to use is like asking which college football team has been the best over the last 20 years, nobody has rational opinions on this ****, it's all religion. Ultimately you need to understand the difference between detergents (simple green, most stuff sold at bike shops) and solvents (mineral spirits, biodiesel, flushing with mucho prolink), and then use whatever the situation calls for.

My winter bike gets a snow bath after every couple days, I just rub off the sand/salt/grime with snow. It scratches the paint and whatnot, but it is just my winter beater. Once spring comes around, I will tear the bike down, salvage whatever parts I can, degrease, regrease and repack, and throw the wheels on one of my nicer bikes. If the frame isn't too bad I will use it again for the next winter season, otherwise it goes to the scrap metal pile for building choppers/tallbikes/etc. As for rust, I just let all my components rust/corrode and deal with it in the spring. They salt like crazy out here and no matter what you do beside a complete teardown/clean/buildup after every ride/commute you are going to get rust on all your steel parts, my chain is pretty much one giant chunk of rust for ~5 months out of the year (N. Minnesota winters are long).

http://img81.imageshack.us/img81/1920/bikecopywu8.jpg

my winter beater/commuter/hoopty

Lube chain every 100 miles or so - that takes about a minute.
Check tire pressure twice a week - my rear tends to deflate a bit over a few days.
Every month or so make sure all bolts are tight.

All told, I put less maintenance into my fixed gear in one month than I do on my mountain bike after each ride.

how do you lube the chain? how do you clean it and with what

I use Rock & Roll gold.
Best ever. and self cleaning.

I have my bike on a wall rack that lets me turn the pedals and spin the wheel in the air. I put a rag on the floor below the bike. You don't need anything special, just an old t-shirt or red shop rag will do. Most chain lube comes with an eye-dropper like spout. So, with a gentle squeeze, you should be able to make it drip out in a controlled way.

I turn the cranks slowly forward, and drip the lube on the chain, trying to get it on the posts on the inside. (Remember, think of it like putting drops in your eye, not spraying out like a squirt gun.) I do that until I think I've gotten the whole chain, maybe 2 full revolutions of the chain.

I then take the shop rag, grip it snugly around the chain, and turn the cranks some more, wiping off the excess lube. Don't worry about wiping it all off, that's really difficult; you're just making sure the lube is a thin even coating instead of big wet drops. Also, very important - make sure to hold the rag and chain several inches away from the pedals and chainring, and turn the cranks so the portion of chain you're working on is going away from the cranks and chainring. If you have the drivetrain spinning and aren't careful, your finger could get cut off (http://sheldonbrown.com/fixed.html).

I make sure to pinch on the left and right sides of the chain fairly tightly, to wipe them as clean as possible, as you don't need the lube there at all - it'll only make the chain sticky and grab excess grime.

Oh, I try to keep my bike frozen too. I could bring it in after every ride, but the thawing/freezing seems to do more harm than good, so I leave it locked in the backyard.

i lube the chain when the drivetrain starts to make noise

thats all the maintenance it has had in 3 years of daily commuting

For being a bike mechanic, I'm horribly neglectful of my rides. I generally lube the chain whenever I put any of my bikes in the stand (once every couple weeks), and after some "spin checks," I'll know quickly whether I need to do any maintenance on the drivetrain, wheels, or headset. Quite frankly, I don't use **** parts and know generally when to do an overhaul on any specific component. For my street ride, I'm slowly switching over to sealed stuff (Phil/King), so overhauling will never be necessary.

I clean my bikes every week. Every week, I check the headset, clean the chain/redo the tension, add air to the tires and tighten the stack bolts. It's fun, only takes a few minutes, and my ride is smooth/silent.

On the snow bike, I check to make sure the cranks and wheels turn properly, but I don't check tire pressure enough. The sidewalls are stiff enough that I can run 20 psi without flatting. If I see the chain is rusty, I oil it. The bike is either in the dirt or in the snow/slush/salt, so it gets trashed enough that I end up replacing parts instead of maintaining them. I've stopped buying cheap pedals, as they don't last very long.

On the conversion, There's not too much to do. Everything spins freely, so I just pump up the tires when they feel soft. If the chain is looking dry, I'll throw the lube on [schnee's approach works quite well]. The rear hub is sealed, and the front hub hasn't given me trouble in years, so I don't mess with it.