I don't do any tweaking to my bike. I just get on it and ride. Earlier, I moved the seat up and down a bit to find a proper height, and I partially deflated a tire while learning to fit my pump to it. I don't see a need for anything else, really.

Honestly, I spend more time on it than I should, but that's just because I'm a perfectionist and like it whisper-quiet.

BB maintenance = dropping in a new $12 BB every 3 years (12000 miles). At least, assuming that the current cheapest-available-BB lasts as long as the last one.

+1

Before I had kids, I used to do 95% of the maintenance on our cars. I was into cars at the time and I can tell you I spent a lot more time on the cars than I do on bikes.

When I first started commuting I wasn't really into bikes that much. It was just transportation in the way most people view their cars. I didn't care of the shifting wasn't optimal or if the rims weren't perfectly true.

Now I'm more of an enthusiast and spend more time working on the bikes. I enjoy it and it's a much less time consuming hobby than cars were because bikes are so simple by comparison.

The exposed components on bikes means more maintenance for things like chains but that's not entirely because of the racing influence. It's because most of the market considers cycling to be a fair weather activity.

It's good that low maintenance items IGH's and drum brakes are available. It's also good that you can get really light weight bikes, - not just for speed, but for ease of ownership. Portability is something that's very important to many commuters. I've watched women struggle getting their bikes into the racks on our light rail train line. I had a woman ask me just last weekend about a bike I was selling. She wanted to know if it was light enough for her to easily carry up two flights of stairs to her apartment.

One point of contention in my family was eliminated when I got a lighter bike that I can easily hang from the rafters in our garage each evening. Now I don't need room on the floor and a clear path maintained from where I kept it to the door. I can carry my new bike over my head easily.

If racing plays a role in making lighter bikes available and more affordable, I'm happy for it's influence.

I'd say for most commuters, unless they're commuting in nasty environments like salty slush covered roads, a regular tune-up and going over at an LBS once or twice or year is probably all they need aside from keeping air in the tires.

I have an 11 mile route to work. 4 miles of it is normally gravel (right now it's more like 6 due to construction detours), which means no chance the bike stays clean. A clean chain is covered with sandy clay within 2 miles. Washboards and potholes are pretty much constant on the gravel.

I think it's possible that part of the reason my derailler stays in proper adjustment is that I have a kickstand, and my bike has NEVER been laid down or fallen down as far as I know. That's got to be hard on the derailler, and is one reason I won't have a bike without a kickstand.

I'm not a very speedy rider, I'm only averaging about 17-18 MPH over the 11 miles. I do have some hills and until I built a new rear wheel the load/unload stress back there broke about 20 spokes, so there's some stress there.

In the winter I take the same route but with studded tires, that gravel road is pretty much solid ice all winter.

I have replaced the freewheel twice now, because I screwed up and let the chain stay on way past its worn out stage, and when I replaced the chain it started skipping like crazy. But even then I didn't have to touch the shifter.

The only times my bike hasn't shifted right, it didn't need a derailler adjustment, it was because the chain was so gunked up it would barely bend anymore. OK, also one time I had my tire pump twist around on me and pull sideways on the open part of the shifter cable, and I thought it needed adjustment until I found that, twisted it back, and everything was back to normal again.

FWIW, I'm really easy on equipment in general. I didn't replace the brakes on my car until 100,000 miles, and even then I estimated they probably had another 20,000 in them, but I'd bought pads already and figured I might as well install them and not have to worry about them for another 10 years or so. That car has 130000 miles on it (bought new) and I've spent < $2000 on it including 2 new sets of tires and all consumables apart from gasoline. I tend to coast into stoplights slow so I can hit the green, I slow down early, etc. I do the same with my bike.

I've had good experiences and the best reliability with high end lightweight components. I have a 97 Litespeed Classic that I put 9 speed Dura Ace on shortly after the 9 speed came out. The chain and cassette lasted about 20,000 miles before shifting became poor. It was rarely tuned, perhaps once in that 20,000 miles.

I also put 20,000 plus miles on a pair of hand built wheels. The cassette hub began to freewheel poorly, but other than that, there were no issues with the wheels.

(Slight aside: I'm shocked sometimes at the number of bikes I see on the streets that look like they never get any maintenance. Someone in this thread mentioned that a commuter bike isn't as important to maintain as a racing bike. If you're going to be barreling down the street at upwards of 30 km/hr on this thing, don't you want to make sure it'll hold together? That's fast enough to hurt you if some part of the machine fails. Take care of it for your own sake.)

Cars do get lots of maintenance, but they tend to get it in shops, not at home. You take it to a mechanic unless you're a real gearhead and the car is out of warranty. Thinking back, my boyfriend's current car and his last car, and my sister's car, and my mother's car don't go a year without a visit to the mechanic to be tuned up.

One possible difference is that a bike has more moving parts that are out in the open, exposed to rain and grit and UV rays, compared to a car. There may very well be parts on a bike that get abraded or corroded faster than they would if they were under the hood of a car.

I'd go with the enthusaist angle as well.

I don't work on our car. Changing wipers is about as mechanical as I get with it, beyond refilling low fluids. It's a beater, there's a leak somewhere in the head that would be more to fix than the car is worth, so lately I've had to swap out the plugs a couple times. But for even easy things like an oil change, it goes to the shop.

I used to be very into motorcycles and did all kinds of work on my bikes. Rejetting carbs, internal fork upgrades, aftermarket parts swaps... all the things people do to their bikes, but on a motorcycle. That lust has faded a bit, but just yesterday, I changed the oil and coolant, oiled the chain and adjusted it, replaced the oil pressure sensor.

I just built a commuter bike from frame up and in the first couple shakedown months, there were a few adjustments here and there. I still need to basically take it apart and build it back up now that I know what works and what doesn't. But really, now that it's pretty much broken in and various things have gone through inital seating and stretching, maintenance is almost non existant. This is an IGH bike with full fenders and canti brakes. Once I get the setup nailed, I expect to have to do very little regular maintenance on it.

We also bought a used tandem... We've been on it 650 mi so far and every week there's something to fix or futz with. I might preemptively replace the brake cables (both shifter cables broke en route at different times). Now that problem areas have been fixed, again maintenance is tailing off... just in time to make various upgrades like a captain stem swap, new stoker bar and stem, eventually a front dynamo hub wheel with lighting...

But I like working on bikes. They are relatively simple compared to a motorcycle, and simpler again than a car. There's a certain pride of being able to do my own work, and if something is done wrong, I have only myself to blame, not some shop I paid.

I think if I wanted to, I could certainly get away with about the same level of maintenance for a bike that I exert for our car or my motorcycle now that I'm not into motos as much as I used to be. But will probably end up putting as much time into the bikes as I used to put into my moto when I was way into them.

I clean and lube my chain when it's either black or making a racket, so < once/month. In about 6,000km or so of cycling i think i've tweaked my gears once and replaced the brake pads once. I guess i put air in my tires weekly, still i think the maintenance is relatively minor.

:lol: Nope I lived in an excellent are where everything I could ever need was within a 3-4 mile radius including work:thumb: Stupid me...got married and moved:p

Aaron:)

It's because we power the bike, so any bike we're riding is pretty much a "performance" bike, because the kind of ride a "durable" bike would provide would be unacceptable to most. As someone mentioned, get a bike with an enclosed drivetrain, drum brakes and an internal hub and you won't have to touch a thing. It's gonna weigh a ton though, and you might not be happy about it.

For what it's worth, you seem to not be aware that performance cars like F1 Racers built by Ferari or Porsche usually have a life span of one race before the engine requires a rebuild.

You could always get a fixed gear as well

I put at least 20,000 miles on my 1972 Raleigh Sports 3 speed with coaster from 1972-76, commuting and daily chores in Philadelphia. Kept it around and used it occasionally after I moved to Oregon and started using a 1969 Raleigh Sprite with an S5 hub that I picked up in a thrift store. The Raleigh Sports eventually became my daughter's daily use bike until she abandonded it in Freiburg, Germany in 2002. I did almost zero maintenance on it. In all that time except for fixing flat tires. There's almost no mechanical problem that will make a Raleigh 3 speed inoperable for more than 15 minutes.

Working on my bike gives me a reason to hang out in the garage and drink a beer while the wife is walking/knitting/reading.

I don't do much maintenance on my bikes other than putting air in the tires and lubing the chain. My Cervelo requires the least maintenance, despite the 10-speed cassette and copious amounts of carbon and alloys. In terms of saddle time, I spend the most on it in any given year. My Trek requires the most maintenance, but it gets rode hard and put away wet all winter. It also lives outside the back door and gets exposed to +35C days, -35C nights, hail, snow, rain, dust, bird poop and cat scratching.

My experiences are similar but I have a cheapo racing bike that's only got a few carbon bits. I think we imagine commuting to be a tough and grueling life for a bike and in some cases it is. But in terms of sheer mileage, it's the racing bikes that see most of the action. So while some complain that racing bikes are finicky and fragile, it's often not the case. My guess is that maintenance saving things like sealed bearings started out in the racing world.

Anyway the "racing" bike I use as my commuter for 8 months of the year requires much less maintenance than the poor mountain bike that gets doused with salt and grit during winter, - even though I put far less miles on it. I may may convert an old road bike to a single speed and give that a shot this winter.

I don't. Haven't touched my chain in two months. I lube it if it gets noisier than usual and that's about it.

It's because consumers have long expected lighter alloy (and now carbon) components even on more utilitarian bikes. When typical transportation-type 10 speeds were made with all steels components, and all the lubricated parts could be lubed with an oil can in just a few minutes, a bike could literally go for almost decades with very minimal attention if any. They were heavy, but the upshot was that they required very little maintenance. They were also pretty simple to work on if you did develop a problem. But we all want light, and the price we pay is more frequent adjustment and overhaul.

Most of the commonly-available bike require a lot of maintenance because cyclists accept this. It's acepted in the cycling community that one should at least be willing and able to fix a flat, and things like replacing brake pads and cleaning chains are perfectly normal. Because of diametrically opposite customer expectations, bikes and cars have evolved very differently in the last thirty years. It's possible that things may change as more noncyclists go bicycle shopping and bring automotive expectations with them.

Paul;

Speak for yourself!:notamused::p I prefer the heavier built bikes like the Azor's and the old Nottingham Raleighs...for a variety of reasons.

Aaron:)

How do alloy and carbon parts require more maintenance than their steel counterparts?

I love to work on old bikes but in my experience, they are in fact more work. I've spent hours just trying get the damn brakes to quit squealing. Then there's the bearing repacking and adjusting. Modern clearcoat finishes last much longer than the finishes of the 70's did with much less attention.

I remember rubbing and waxing my old steel wheels to try to keep the rust off and them chewing up brake pads in a matter of months.

My nostalgia filter remembers things a little bit differently.

Well my take is this, The better quality of the component parts means less tweaking. That doesn't always mean the most expensive, and hardly ever means the lightest, but a good, well built dérailleur is going to stay in adjustment better than a poor one. You can go the "Dutch" route, and buy a Bakfiets, but riding that on a 20 mile commute might be a bit tiring.

Secondly, power losses on a car are hard to notice, and have only an indirect impact, "Why is my fuel consumption so high these days?" On a bike, your legs tell you about every watt you expend, you feel every "grind, grind" every poor shift, and so on.

I ride a 10 year old bike, I don't think it's ever been cleaned. The first 2 years were spent riding, but the next 6 were basically sitting in a garage or shed. Now I have it out again. But still, although there are minor problems (rear der. can't get into lowest gear, probably a dirty cassette, and recently front der. was having problems getting to lowest as well, but i suspect it's the deraileur itself), it rides alright for the most part. That's all that matters to me, for it to run. Maybe if I have time, I'll flip the thing over and give it a nice clean up, but I've been telling that to myself for the past 6 months.

It's how people perceive the maintenance of the bike. Some wish it more, some less.

I oil my chain every few weeks/whenever it needs it and top off the tired every other day.

Other than that, I only work on my bike when it needs it.

You'd be amazed at how better the bike rides with a non-gunked up chain and cassette. I let my road bike get a little dirty over the last year...it was night and day after giving it a good cleaning in early spring.

Anyway, I only do minor amounts of tweaking on my bikes...I check the tire pressure almost every time, and periodically clean and lube the chains, make sure the brakes aren't rubbing, make sure my cleats are properly secured. A few times a year I do a good chain/gear cleaning, tune the deraileurs and do a good once over on the bike.

Not too different than my car: check my tire pressure, wash and clean it every few weeks; at regular intervals I check my fluid levels and change my oil; I get a tune up and alignment probably once a year.

Basic maintenance will keep any piece of equipment running well for a long time...I like prevention.

Its not that bicycles need more tweaking, its that motor vehicles don't get enough.

If a motor vehicle's tires are low one just needs to push the gas a bit more and it takes a bit more fuel - a difference hardly any one will notice. A cyclist can feel the extra resistance from a soft tire and would rather take the time to keep tire inflated to keep the bike as efficient as possible.

I'd wager than there is a significantly higher percentage of under inflated regularly used motor vehicle tires than regularly used bicycle tires.

(all the above similar for transmission/drivetrain, suspension, alignment, etc.)

Al

They don't (unless its a MTB that sees serious use in sand, mud, cowcack etc)

If you want a bike that needs almost no tweaking, first, get at least a internally geared hub. I personally recommend SRAM as my top choice. I have (or had) many of them, and to me they are my favorite. I especially recommend the iBrake on their model. You fix both the maintenance and the tweaking issues at once. No rim degradation, not prone to being hit like a disc brake and good rain performance. My roommate has the SRAM S7 with the ibrake that I mounted for him. Impressive! It hasn't went through a whole winter yet so I can't say about its water-proofness and resistance to corrosion.

Fenders (especially those made of steel or aluminum), chain guard (hard to find) are also a good idea.

You should of course have it maintained (or maintain it yourself) once a year, but two is better if you ride where there is snow (once after winter, and once before). Most importantly, do your maintenance after winter, since it's the season during which your bike will get beaten most.

Alu over steel for your frame is a good idea. But if you're like me and you think nothing rides like steel, rustproof your frame. Gotta make some compromises. :P

I was complaining about having to fix something all the time the other day. I generally like working on stuff but I too would like to ride my bike more than work on it.

Lots of you are missing some basic point in the differences ;)

Lets say your chain, BB, crank, RD, FD, and cassette were all self lubricated AND enclosed within a aluminum casing.
Now lets say your wheels (hubs & axles) were sealed from the elements and lubricated.
Then lets say instead of mounting to a dropout/hanger, your RD is a very robust thing that never moves - only the internal parts move. And the internal parts move in a very different way than a RD.

Now how much less maintenance would you need to do...
That's why a car can go 3-10,000 miles between any maintenance - its systems are protected from the outside world and always lubricated properly. The design on the transmission is very different than a bike's transmission.

That's a bit extreme. However, I found that fenders and a long front mudflap do a lot to keep the drivetrain clean.

Even though I commute daily (about 18 km each way, which often extends to 25-30 km) in all sorts of weather, I typically clean the chain about twice a year. Brake pads need to be changed once or twice a year also. As for the rest, I need to readjust my shifters about once every two years.