Spring bicycle maintenance
If you packed your bike away in the fall, your spring bicycle maintenance duties should be light. But if you rode during the winter, you have some work to do.
by Amanda Beattie
If you packed your bike away in the fall and haven’t pulled it out of the garage or basement since, your spring bicycle maintenance duties should be light. You might just have to add some air to the tires, check the bolts and lube the moving parts.
But if you rode through the winter, your bike might be in rough shape. No matter how well you were cleaning it after rides, it’s likely that some parts will need replacing. Water, salt and road grit cover your cables in bad weather and get pulled though the housings. The resulting corrosion leads to sticky braking and poor shifting. Once cables get to that point, it isn’t worth trying to salvage them. Start from scratch with fresh cables and housings once the sporadically wet spring weather is over.
Brake pads should also be changed. When conditions are messy, before the brakes are able to grip the rim, they first have to work their way through the grit and dirt that has coated the braking surface. Bits of road grit get embedded into the rubber pads, which can lead to damage on the rim itself. Fresh pads and a good cleaning of the wheels will help braking performance immensely. Running disc brakes means it’s less likely the pads will need to be changed since they’re designed for worse weather conditions, but they should still be pulled out and checked for wear. Also check the connections at the caliper and brake lever for corrosion.
The bike’s drivetrain takes the brunt of the bad weather abuse. Riding through the winter means a new chain and cassette are likely needed, especially if these weren’t changed during the previous riding season. This is also a good time to pull out the bottom bracket, inspect, re-grease and reinstall. A lot of water gathers here as it’s flipped up off the wet roads and pours down through the bike frame.
Late winter and spring are good times to tear bikes down in order to inspect them for damage, replace parts as needed, add new lube and grease and put everything back together. Weather in the spring is unpredictable, so just because there’s a solid week of warm weather in March doesn’t mean post-winter maintenance is finished. Latespring snow will just lead to more bike maintenance. Be patient. Good weather will come soon.
