Fifty Plus (50+) - Mountain bike maintenance

Just got a new MB after 15 year absence from cycling. Is there a thread on maintenance here? I've never changed a tire, don't know much about repair-maintenance, been on motorcycles the past 27 years. Love the MB, took a couple of good spills and my 61 year old ribs are sore. Guess I should stay on the trails.

http://www.parktool.com/repair_help/FAQindex.shtml Is a very good site.

I oil my chain, derailler pivots once a week.
I clean my brake pads, rims every 2 weeks.
I clean the chain every 3 weeks.
Every 2-3 months I pull and flush my wheel hub bearing, same with my unsealed pedal bearings.
Generally inspect the bearings, races -repack.

I do a general inspection before any long rides. I'm sure you'll have little problem if you maintained motorcycles. Same kinda stuff, 'cept you are the motor.

Keep the rubber side down.

>jef.

Pick up a copy of Lennard Zinn's book, something like "Zinn and the art of Mountain Bike Maintenance," less than $30 at most big bookstores. It covers everything you'll need. The maintenance and adjustment of a mountain bike aren't much different from those of a road bike, except that I lube the chain and exposed parts more often.
I look my bikes over about every other ride, but in general I've drifted away from scheduled maintenance to just yearly or even every other year tune-ups. For years I rebuilt headsets, bottom brackets and everything at least yearly, but it dawned on me a few years ago that everything I took apart looked like new, so probably it would have run awhile longer. But I do spread the mileage out over several bikes, so if I were doing all my riding on one, it would need more frequent service.

Providing you are handy with the spanners, then Bike maintenance is easy. Only problem is How tight to Tighten everything. You are mostly talking 6 mm bolt sizes, and if not tight enough, they move and if too tight they snap. My advice to anyone mechanically minded is to look at how the parts are put together before adjusting or replacing it.
Just face, if you have a mountain bike, then you will be repairing the bike out on the trails in any case, Simple things like puncture repair and cable adjustment is obvious, but what you should learn are a few extra basics like re-trueing a wheel, how to change and set up brake blocks, and how to change a chain. Almost as important is to be able to recognise when these things need doing, and that comes by experience, so you have a long learning curve ahead of you.
My theory is "If it ain't broke--don't fix it", but add to that a little extra of "Check the thing before it falls apart"