Guide to Keeping Your Bike in Optimal Conditions

Keeping your bicycle in perfect condition will extend its life, avoiding unnecessary costs. But a bike that functions correctly brings even greater enjoyment and ensures a safe ride.

Scott image by Gaudenz Danuser

The Importance of Taking Care of Your Bike

The bicycle components suffer wear and tear and deterioration with use and even with the mere passage of time. The lack of basic maintenance of a bicycle can cause breakdowns, but also the loss of its properties and quality of operation progressively. Most often, we adapt without being aware of it. But this deterioration of the components and the loss of quality in its operation will make the experience of riding a bike much less rewarding and increase the risk of breakdowns and even accidents, putting our safety at risk.

In this article, we are going to give you a guide to always keeping your bicycle in optimal conditions, and these are the aspects that you will have to take into account and on which we are going to structure and base the complete maintenance of the bicycle:

Cleaning
Lubrication
Revisions and Adjustments
Maintenance and Repair
Storage and Transportation

We have a lot of content published covering all these operations in this Blog and in our Mundo Mammoth YouTube channel, so, instead of describing in great detail all these operations, generating an endless text of difficult reading, we will be linking content to articles and videos, to go into greater detail and thoroughness in each of them. An important piece of information for any cyclist.

1. Cleaning Your Bike

Bike Cleaning

Cleaning your bike is the most frequent maintenance operation and keeping the bike cleanand lubricated is essential to extend the life of the components.

In it, we include cleaning the bike with and without water and specific tips for cleaning electric bikes

2. Lubricating Your Bike

Bicycle lubrication

If cleaning is important, then lubrication is the soul of your bike. We must grease and lubricate the bike every time we clean its components or when they show signs of lack of lubrication, especially in the case of the chain. But it is very important to do it correctly and use the right products. As basic guidelines:

Oils or lubricants with wax bases for the chain, the rest of the transmission, pedals, controls and suspensions.
Grease on shafts and bearings.
Greases or carbon paste are also used at the contact points between materials, when any of the components is made of this material.

3. Revisions and Adjustments

Bicycle revision and adjustment

For the correct maintenance of the bicycle, we have to make some basic revisions, in which we will check the wear, the tightening of the screws and the possible looseness. The looseness in any component, must be detected and fixed as soon as possible, to avoid causing breakdowns or serious damage. It is a preventive maintenance, to prevent incidents on the road or serious breakdowns.

It is advisable to have a protocol for these recommended periodic reviews, in which we establish the elements to be reviewed and adjusted, according to a planned schedule. To avoid problems, those that must be checked more frequently, and ideally before each departure, are:

Tyres. Check the pressure and that there are no objects stuck. It is always better to remove them at home and observe what happens, and fix any problem before leaving for your ride.
Wheels. Check that the wheel fasteners are tight and that there is no looseness in the hubs. We will also quickly check the spokes by hand to make sure there are no loose or broken spokes.
Brakes. Check their operation, the condition of the brake pads and that they do not rub on any part of the disc or rim.
Transmission. Check that the bike chain is lubricated and that there is no slack in pedals, cranks, chainrings and bottom bracket.
Frame bolts. Check the tightness of the seatpost, saddle, and bottle cage bolts, and the rear suspension pivot points for looseness, when servicing a full suspension bike.
Steering and handlebars. Check that it turns correctly and that there is no play. And check the stem clamping bolts, both to the head tube and to the handlebars.
Check the suspensions, verifying that they work properly and that they do not leak oil.

For this basic overhaul, hardly any specific tool is needed and allen and torque wrenches will suffice, in most cases. But it is highly recommended the use of a torque wrench, to apply the correct torques.

Apart from this basic revision, we would have to plan a more in-depth revision, following the guidelines we recommend in this chart.

Recommended Bike Maintenance
Before Every Ride	1 – 3 Months	6 Months - 1 Year	Yearly
Tire Pressure and Wear Wheel Quick Releases Brakes and Discs Lubrication and Play in Transmission General Tightness of Screws Suspension: check proper functioning and potential leaks	Full Cleaning and Lubrication Transmission Wear Tire Condition and Wear Wear on Brake Pads / Shoes and Piston Functioning Suspension Pressure Anti-puncture liquid (every three months)	Clean and Grease Steering Clean and Grease Seat Post Remove, Clean and Grease Bottom Bracket, Cranks and Pedals Adjust Shifters and Hanger Review and Center Wheels Purge and Clean Pistons Suspension Maintenance	Hub Adjustment and Maintenance Replace Cables and Covers Replace Brake Fluid Ebikes: Clean Motor Compartment Clean and Check Connections Software Update
Maintenance intervals assume 600-800 km/month, approximately. For less frequent use: 1. Every three months instead of monthly 2. Yearly instead of every three months 3. Yearly revisions and maintenance are always recommended

4. Bicycle Maintenance and Repair

Bike mainenance

In the previous section and in the articles linked, we have seen the revisions and how often to maintain a bicycle. Now, we are going to see the corrective maintenance operations, that is, how to maintain a bicycle, referring to mechanical operations to repair breakdowns or replace parts and components.

In this section, we are going to recommend the extensive collection of videos on mechanics and maintenance that we have published on our Youtube Channel Mammoth World. With this large collection of tutorials, you will be able to do many of the most frequent mechanical operations yourselves, without taking your bike to the workshop. All these videos are organized in playlists, and we give you below the link to the most important ones, to make your search easier:

And, for most of these operations, you will need the specific tools that we recommend in each video, summarized in the video aboutbasic tools for the home workshop.

5. Bike Storage and Transportation

The correct storage of your bike and its proper transport are also part of the maintenance measures to keep it always in perfect condition.

We take an in-depth look at ways to transport your bike and the necessary accessories in this article in which we explain how to choose a bike rack.

And in this video, we give you the necessary tips to properly store your bike when not using it

Final Tips

To finish, we are going to give you some last recommendations, for different types of bicycles.

Mountain Bike Maintenance. Due to the demanding terrain in which these bikes are generally used, mountain bike require the most care and maintenance, as they can deteriorate if not cleaned and maintained frequently. It is also critical to take care of the suspension. In short, it is very important that you inform yourself about how to maintain your MTB.
Road Bike Maintenance. Although the frequency of revisions and replacement of parts are much longer with respect to mountain bikes, be sure to set yourselves some deadlines and protocols of revision in order to avoid problems.
Ebike Maintenance. The components for electric bicycles require special care, which you will find in the articles and videos that we have recommended, but it is also advisable to read the manufacturer's manual carefully. As for the mechanical components, it must be taken into account that the wear will be greater than in conventional bikes of the same type.
Folding Bike Maintenance. Apart from being well informed about how to take care of all the components, you have to pay special attention to wear and looseness in the folding elements, as they are the weakest point of folding bicycles.

We are aware that it is not always easy, or even pleasant for some, to dedicate the time necessary to rigorously comply with all the advice we have just given you, but there are many benefits that you will obtain. By way of summary:

You will extend the life of your bike and its components.
You will avoid breakdowns caused by lack of care and maintenance.
You will always enjoy the best performance quality.
You will increase the reliability of the bike and your own safety.

These are reasons enough to make an effort to give your bike this care. And, if you can't or don't want to, count on the help of the professionals in the specialized stores.

At the Mammoth stores and Mammoth online, you will find all the necessary spare parts and tools for the care of your bike, and, of course, the best professionals who will keep your bike always in top condition.