Maintenance Checklist for Mountain Bikes

Mountain bikers often neglect basic mountain bike maintenance until they find themselves standing next to a trail with a busted bike, 15 miles from anywhere. This doesn't have to happen to you if you follow this five-part bicycle maintenance guide and learn a few tips about mountain bike repair and general bicycle maintenance.

1. Keep Your Mountain Bike Clean

Strangely enough, the first bicycle maintenance mistake most mountain bikers make is blasting their bike with a hose after every ride. While it may seem counterintuitive, washing your mountain bike in this way can actually do more harm than good. The water can wash bits of sand and grit into the inner workings of the bike, creating a bike repair nightmare down the road. Instead, wait for the mud on your bike to dry, and then clean it with brushes and rags. Unless you ride on a particularly muddy day, you'll only need to wash your bike approximately every eight rides. Here's a bicycle maintenance guide for cleaning your bike:

1. Knock the big chunks of dirt and mud off with your fingers or a brush.
2. Scrub the bike with warm, soapy water using rags and brushes.
3. Use a gentle spray from a hose to wash off the soapy water.
4. Dry the bike with clean rags.
5. Turn your bike upside-down and backpedal the chain, running a stiff, nylon brush along it. This gets your chain surprisingly clean.

2. Take Care of Your Chain

The above steps will keep your chain clean, but when it comes to mountain bike maintenance, that's just the beginning of chain care. To avoid a trailside mountain bike repair to your chain, you'll also want to make sure your chain is well-lubricated and intact. Follow these tips for chain maintenance:

• Be sure to lube your chain regularly. Turn the bike upside-down and gently drip a bicycle chain lube over the chain as you backpedal the bike. Let it sit for a few minutes, and then remove the excess oil with a cloth. Excess oil doesn't help your chain; it attracts dirt and grit that can cause bicycle maintenance problems down the road.
• Check your chain regularly to make sure all the chain rings are intact and secure.
• Use a degreaser on your chain every eight rides or so. This simple mountain bike maintenance tip might save you a bike repair later by preventing a situation in which your chain binds up and breaks.

As chains wear, they also wear out the rings of your gears, so these should be checked regularly as well. Even with frequent chain replacements, though, you'll still likely need to replace the rear cassette and inner and middle rings of your gears every year if you ride a few days per week.

3. Check Your Tires Before Every Ride

Slow leaks in your tires are easy to miss, and many mountain bikers find themselves performing an emergency bike repair to a tire they thought was fine. The best way to check a tire is to remove the tube and submerge it in water, then watch for escaping air bubbles. However, even if you take every mountain bike maintenance precaution, your tire may go flat while you're riding. In this case, follow these steps for trailside or roadside bike repairs on tires:

1. Turn the bike upside-down and remove the wheel.
2. Remove the tube from the tire using tire irons. (Tire irons are pieces of metal or plastic designed for removing tires during emergency bike repairs. Get tire irons if you don't already have some; they can be lifesavers.)
3. Check the inside of the tire for thorns, glass, metal fragments or gravel.
4. Use sandpaper to rough up the area of the tube around the hole.
5. Apply a patch to the hole.
6. Place the tube back in the tire, beginning with the area around the valve stem.
7. Pump air back into the tire.

Check the trueness of the rims and spoke tension every time you wash your bike.

4. Mind Your Brakes

Every time you wash your bike or do some other bit of mountain bike maintenance, look at your brake pads to check for wear. Keep in mind that disc brake pads will last much longer than rim brake pads. If a pad has worn through, you'll likely hear a metallic rubbing sound when you use your brakes. In either case, replace the brake pads. For most setups, this is a relatively simple mountain bike repair, but in some cases (with non-disc brakes only) getting the brakes correctly aligned can be tricky. Mainly, you'll want to get a front-on view to make sure the tire is center-aligned in between the two brake pads. Otherwise, the pads can rub even when they're not engaged. Disc brakes usually require little or no bicycle maintenance at all.

5. Let Professionals Handle Complex Mountain Bike Maintenance

Many well-meaning mountain bikers make things worse with shoddy bicycle maintenance or a failed attempt at mountain bike repair. It's important to know your limits so you can decide when to do your own bicycle maintenance and when to go to a professional for mountain bike maintenance. Here's a list of bicycle maintenance items and mountain bike repairs you should leave up to a professional:

• Hydraulic disc brakes need to be bled once every two years.
• Rear air and coil shocks need to be serviced once a year.
• Suspension forks need to be overhauled once per year.
• The torques of key bolts ought to be checked twice per year.