Not good. Not good at all.
I had come in with a flat tire, but the mechanic eyed my brake pads. “Did you know that these are on backwards?” he asked, his tone faintly accusatory.
“I, um. Yes, so they are,” I mumbled, offering a sheepish grin. But he didn’t crack a smile, informing me instead that my brake pads needed replacing, too. And my wheels?
“I’d start saving your pennies now,” he told me. “You should replace your wheelset within a couple of weeks, and your tires within a month. You’re getting to the danger zone.”
The danger zone. It’s no place where any cyclist wants to be.
It’s true, my bicycle has suffered some serious abuse in the three years I’ve been making a daily, 6.7-mile, all-weather trek to work and back. I dribble lube on the chain maybe three times a year. The brakes are caked with winter mud, the cables frayed and loose. When it makes weird noises in complaint, I sometimes ignore them, opting instead to seek out the nearest bike shop when (and only when) it gives out in protest.
All of which is to say, if there’s hope for me, there’s hope for all of us. In honor of Bike Month, here’s a simple (yet important!) tip that will keep your wheels rolling smoothly:
Check your tire pressure
You probably know that keeping your tires properly inflated will make your bicycle more efficient, which means you’ll sweat less on the hills. But you may not know that riding with under-inflated tires makes you vulnerable to pinch flats, since your tube could be pinched between your rims and the pavement if you hit a curb or pothole too hard. (Incidentally, that’s how I ended up in the aforementioned bike shop with the aforementioned bike mechanic.)
How often should you inflate your tires? I learned recently that as a commuter who rides about 70 miles per week, I should be using a bike pump once or twice per week. (I had no idea! And maybe some of you lurkers don’t either. It’s OK, I’m there with you.) Depending on how much you ride, you may need to do it less or more often.
And what’s the proper tire pressure? Tire manufactures specify the optimum tire pressure; usually, it’s written on the sidewalls. Depending how much you weigh, how much gear you carry, whether you’re more interested in speed or comfort, and what kind of terrain you’re riding on, you’ll want to adjust it slightly.
A healthy bike is:
1) Quiet
2) Tight (not loose in any of its ‘joints’)
3) Clean
4) Ridden regularly (OK, I think it’s good for the bike’s mental health and yours)
All bikes make a little noise. Some are almost completely silent. Know how your bike sounds when it’s healthy. If it makes a new noise, figure it the cause before it becomes dangerous or expensive. A buddy overlooked a brake noise a little too long. Turns out the pad wore down to the metal base and gouged the rear rim. He got to buy a new rim along with a new set of brake pads. The wallet says, “Ouch!”
Bike ‘joints’ (think hubs, headset, bottom bracket, pedal spindles, brake arms) are meant rotate or pivot in one plane. If there’s any play in the joint, something is loose, worn, or damaged. Look for loose joints when you clean and before you ride. If you don’t know how to fix the loose joint, or don’t know whether or not a particular loose joint represents a safety issue, see your bike mechanic.
Keeping it clean is one way to spot those problems before they leave you stranded, down on the pavement, or just out some unnecessary bucks. Gently removing grit and road grime from the frame and rotating parts will make your bike last longer and probably make you feel better on your rides. Pulling the wheels is the easiest way to clean them and gives you better access to the brakes for inspection and cleaning. Just be sure that when you reassemble the wheels to the bike, you maintain the same wheel alignment and pad position on the wheel.
Our winter weather is rough on bikes used for commuting. It’s wet gritty and cold, and you travel both directions in the dark or near dark. Making time and a place for proper cleaning is tough, but you need to do it every couple of weeks, at least. Wear is inevitable, but keeping it clean can make things last a little longer.
All good advice.
I usually check my bike every weekend when I’m riding daily. Clean and lube the chain, true up the wheels and adjust the deraileurs, if needed, and give it a general once-over. I used to replace broken rear spokes on a regular basis, until I replaced my rear rim with a 40 spoke DT Swiss rim.
But last week, I was too busy, and didn’t get my regular maintenance done–my bike never needs air and it was shifting fine, so I figured I could skip a week. Thursday afternoon, my bike felt a little funny going down hills, like the rear tire was low on air. But there was no leak, and when I spun the wheel, it was still pretty true, so I figured I was imagining it…
Then, Friday morning, I definitely felt something very much like a low tire, and it got worse with every mile. Coming down 4th Avenue after arriving in Seattle, I started to get worried–it was getting bad quickly. Before I left for home that afternoon, I checked–no problem with the air, but at least a dozen spokes were loose, some of them almost to the point of separating from the nipple!
I’ve broken plenty of spokes in my day, but I’ve never seen this happen before. I had no spoke wrench with me, and had to to stop a number of times to hand-tighten the spokes before I got home. The incident torched the tire (from rubbing on the rim brakes), and I spent several hours rebuilding the wheel, but I learned my lesson: Pluck your spokes and listen to the tone every week, to make sure they’re uniformly tight.