Basic Bike Maintenance

Mountain bike maintenance and repairs can be daunting for some but easy for others. Maintaining your own bike is something that everyone can do. If you start with the basic bike maintenance and servicing tasks, before you know it you will have all the bike tools to do a full maintenance service on your own bike. Maintaining a mountain bike in good running order is cost effective and the best way to get long life out of your components and to keep you riding. To service your mountain bike do regular maintenance like a bike wash, wiping it down and checking for damage, adjusting the gears, setting the brakes and changing worn components. If you do regular bike services there will be less need to do costly bike repairs. However even doing DIY bike repairs can save you trips to the bike shop and keep you on your bike instead of it lying around a bike repair shop somewhere waiting for a bike mechanic to look at it. Bike repairs like changing brake pads, changing a chain or removing cranks are also fairly easy to do with a bit of know how and the right tools. Fixing your own bike can be a very rewarding and a useful skill especially if you live far away from a bike workshop or if you compete in long distance mountain bike events where bike maintenance and repair know how is important.
Mountain bike maintenance is something that is easy to learn if you know how. For hands on experience speak to your LBS – local mountain bike shop and ask them if you can spend a couple of hours in their bike workshop. Some of them also offer mountain bike maintenance courses. You should also checkout one of the fine bike repair books available on this website.