First week with a road bike
 

Well, I now have my Marin Venezia road bike. I've been biking in general for only about a month now, and for three weeks of that it was just on this old 35lb+ mountain bike. So I decided to splurge $480 and get a road bike. Well my first impression of it was that I was going to quickly fall. But now, it is great. I just got done riding my longest distance on a bike yet (35 miles). With the road bike everything seems so much easier, cruising along at 16mph or so is very very easy. My only real question is what type of regular matinence and checkups are involved with road bikes? What should I check before each ride? What should I check every week/month/year? What should I replace after a certain amount of time? I know the owner's manual for my bike has some of this information, but I'm just wanting a variety of opinions on this.

-Jason Keller

For one thing, you should always check your tire pressure and see if you have to pump it. Also check your tires to see if its true. See if you breaks correctly stop the wheel. You should always go back to your LBS and get a tune-up, if not yourself. Cables and wires tend to get loose. All I can think of now.

I ride about 50-100 miles a week on a $800 bike, check tires, load it up and go. I listen to my bike for any unusual noise. Get White Lightening on chain couple times a month. Get it checked out half way thru season for $40 - in my opinion these bikes are amazingly durable and don't really need alot of TLC for what you get out of them.