Last year my daughter, her husband and their eight children, ages one to 17, moved to a farm in rural Tennessee. Little did I expect that their move would turn me into a bike mechanic. Until then I took care of most of the minor maintenance on my own bike but left anything difficult to my local mechanic.
On our first visit to the back hills of Tennessee, I found about 10 bikes in need of repair and no local bike repair shop. Those gravel back roads had really taken their toll. Back in Wisconsin, those bikes only needed occasional adjustment.
My son-in-law, Dave, is an excellent mechanic himself. But after toiling in the fields all day and busy keeping his essential farming equipment running, he had little time and less energy to spend keeping up a fleet of bikes.
As important as keeping a bike well maintained is owning a goood quality bike in the first place. This was reinforced for me by local Tennesseeans.
While my daughter’s family is not Amish, they live in an Amish community. And I quickly noticed that the Amish rode very nice mountain bikes. Trek and Specialized seemed to dominate. This seemed especially strange to me as they worked their fields with horse-drawn plows and traveled in horse-drawn carts. The expensive bikes seemed like a contradiction.
Then I met a local Amish bike mechanic. He said the Amish rely so heavily on their bikes for transportation that they need reliable bikes. He said the cheaper department store bikes just didn’t hold up “and they don’t roll as fast.” So even the Amish appreciate fast and easy rolling bikes.
This particular Amish community is divided in half with about five miles and some huge hills seperating them. Each week the Amish residents alternate which church they attend, so every Wednesday and Sunday half of them have to ride over some mini-mountains that would give Lance Armstrong a good workout. While many use horse and buggies, quite a few ride their bikes. So to these Amish, a reliable and easy pedaling bike is not a luxury but a necessity.
My daughter’s family had also become more and more reliant on their bikes for basic transportation back and forth between their neighbors. Someone had to keep the bikes moving, so I began to tackle them one at a time.
Step No. 1: Keep bikes clean
I soon made an elementary discovery. No matter the problem, the bikes had one thing in common: They were exceptionally filthy. My oldest grandson Alex’s bike was a typical example. It didn’t look that dirty, but accumulated grime had done its thing.
At first glance, it looked as if both his rear derailleur and rear shifter were shot. It only shifted from gears 2-4 on the back freewheel. Dismayed to see this once primo racing bike in such a condition, I began cleaning the derailleurs and shifters with water and a small brush. Surprisingly, in a short while, the bike began shifting a little better. I had discovered the first half of the simple secret of keeping mountain bikes going: Keep them clean.
Step No. 2: Keep parts lubed
Then I applied the second step, a liberal dose of WD40 on all moving parts, brake pads excluded. Amazingly, with the bike on my bike stand, the newly lubed chain literally danced up and down the rear sprocket with no adjustments to the derailleurs or shifters.
While the one-two punch of cleaning and lubing works wonders, be sure to avoid applying WD40 to disc brakes. Any grease or lube on the pads becomes imbedded and impossible to remove. Then the only cure is new brake pads. And if you replace the break pads, make sure the discs are clean so the new pads don’t become contaminated.
Now I’ll admit, not all the bikes were that easy to fix. The better quality bikes were much easier to get running again. But one of the kids’ bikes was a bargain I picked up second hand. I should have known better, because I’ve spent more time on that one bike than all the others combined.
How to clean a bike
You would think “keep your bike clean and lubed” would be sufficient advice. But how one cleans a bike is also important. While wiping mud and smudges off the frame will make a bike look spiffy, the real areas to emphasize are the shifters, derailleurs, brakes, bottom bracket and hubs. In other words, the moving parts.
Use soapy water and a small brush to get into hard to reach places. Avoid high pressure spraying as it can damage bearings in the hubs and bottom bracket. Also, clean the bike both right side up and upside down.
If you don’t keep your bike clean, eventually dirt can accumulate in the rubber housings of the cables, making shifting difficult and sluggish. Usually you can deal with this problem without removing the cables. Tip the bike so that water runs into the casings followed by liberally applied WD40 to the ends of the rubber coverings. It’s amazing how well this works. Don’t forget to apply WD40 to the shifters and derailleurs, too.
What about dirty and rusty chains? I’ve always used an expensive chain lube after thoroughly cleaning the chain with a Park chain cleaner. But with so many bikes to rehab in Tennessee, I gave the old reliable WD40 a try and it worked well.
After washing and scrubbing a chain with soapy water and letting it dry, I simply spray the chain with WD40 and wipe off the excess with a cloth. Amazingly, this simple process removes rust, frees sticky links and keeps chains in decent condition.
It is important to use a rag to remove excess WD40 as too much left behind will only attract more dirt. The most important parts to be lubed are between the links of the chain.
So whether you use an expensive set of lubricants, as I do on my own bike, or just WD40, the basic procedure is the same. If you clean and lube your bike on a consistent basis, it will need far fewer adjustments to keep it running smoothly.
I remember the advice I got from Chris Kegel, owner of the Wheel & Sprocket, when I bought my first mountain bike from him in the early 1980s. I asked him what I should do to maintain it. “Just wash it and spray with WD40,” he said.
What he said then still holds true.
Lee Borowski is a past USSA Nordic Coach of the Year, Badger State Winter Games Athlete of the Year and the coach for several junior, senior and collegiate skiers of the year. He has also coached many master skiers who have won both national and world championships. Borowski is the author of several books and articles, and producer of four videos on cross-country skiing technique. He runs the Web site thesimplesecrets.com/.
To order Borowski’s “NEW Simple Secrets of Skating” or “The Simple Secrets of Striding,” demonstrated through footage of Olympic and world champions, and available on VHS and DVD, send $25 plus $1.75 shipping to Lee Borowski, 4500 Cherokee Drive, Brookfield, WI 53045. Wisconsin residents add $1.27 tax.
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9/7/10 - 5:15PM