If you haven't had your bike in for a tune-up after the months of winter riding, it's a good time to do that.
Here are points to either check out yourself if you are well-schooled in bike maintenance or to have your favorite diagnostic bike shop review it for you:
Check out your brakes. Look for the grooves in your brake pads. If the grooves are completely gone and the surface is smooth. Time to replace them.
Assess your tires. The life of road tires vary from tire to tire. If you do not feel comfortable with this assessment, get the help of a professional you trust. Obviously, the road surfaces are dramatically hotter during the summer months and having sound tires is an important element anytime but even more importantly through the heat of summer.
Check out your chain. There are different types of these gauges out there and none are very expensive. However, if you don't have one, check with your bike mechanic and have him measure your chain to be sure it is not stretched. The measurement takes about 30 seconds. If your chain is stretched, it should be replaced. Cost is minimal and you can even learn to do this yourself, but that's another blog entry.
Clean bike? If you are recreational rider who likes doing long, charity rides or you simply spend longer rides with bottles of sport drinks and other nonwater liquids in your bottles, chances are you have dribbled some of that sugary substance when putting your bottles back into their cages. Check your frame, particularly on the very bottom, underneath and below where your bottles are stored. Build-up from this can gum up your shifting cables and create slugglish shifting or worse, can cause a cable to snap. Use a mild solution of Simple Green and gently sponge this area until that build-up is dissolved and can be rinsed away.
A good diagnostic bike shop is worth its weight in gold. After a recent trek up to the towers at South Mountain, a problem arose with my middle ring gear. I discovered with the help of a couple of Gilbert's Focus Cyclery riders who were also headed up to the top, that a gear tooth had bent and was causing my chain to slip. After that ride, I took my bike to the nearby shop and commuter support facility, The Bicycle Cellar in Tempe, to have it looked at. John Romero, shop owner and bicycle mechanic, reviewed the problem for me. Within a day, he was able to repair the gear tooth and cleaned and lubed my drive train. It was also he who noticed the build-up of drink run off and promptly cleaned it up. The next ride proved to be terrific with amazingly smooth and noiseless shifting.
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Tomorrow's post: Get yourself ready for summer cycling.
