6 winter storage tips for mechanically disinclined mountain bikers

It’s the time of year when most Canadians are starting to put away their mountain bikes for the season. Maybe you can’t ride because of the snow. Maybe you’re switching to a fat bike. Or, maybe bikes have dropped out of your life now that Whistler’s open. Before you ditch your bike completely, there are a few things you need to do. You don’t have to, but you’ll hate yourself less in the spring if you do. Unlike feelings, or fall riding injuries, bikes don’t heal over time. There’s nothing worse than getting all dressed up to take advantage of those perfect spring conditions only to find your bike is still broken.

From the simple and obvious to something new, and that one thing that always ends up forgotten: here’s a list of things to do after work that you should definitely have finished by this weekend. Probably. Maybe by next weekend, since there’s a couple cool ‘cross races you want to watch, and it’d be too tough to multi-task.

1) Clean your bike.
Seriously, do it. Like, really clean it. Don’t just lube the chain and walk away. Clean the chain, lube it, wipe it. And then clean the rest of your bike. Seems obvious, but if you have that vague “did I leave the stove on” feeling as you read this, you know you should go back and check your work.

2) Don’t store the bike upside down.
It’s bad for hydraulic systems. Like your brakes. You need those, and they’re not the easiest or quickest thing to fix.

3) Don’t store the bike with the dropper post down.
There’s science involved, but those up-down posts are expensive and they hate that. Droppers are perpetually in an emotionally fragile state to start with, so just don’t push it.

4) Get someone more mechanically adept than you to clean your bike.
Especially if you live anywhere that could be described as wet, sandy, gritty, muddy or damp. You’d be amazed/horrified at what has made its way inside your frame tubes. The end of CX season once saw a half inch of sand fall out of a friend’s BB, and you ride your mountain bike way harder than anyone rides CX, right? There’s more parts of your bike that need love than the chain, and some of them require professional assistance. Bike shops are quiet places now, so this is the time to call the pros.

5) Change your brake pads, cables and housing.
Maybe this isn’t the most necessary item on the list, but it’s probably not a bad idea, either. That way, when spring comes, or when one too many roller sessions makes you snap and plan a warm weather riding escape from the cold, you’re not stuck frantically trying to replace seized cables and worn brake pads.

6) Have your suspension serviced.
This includes forks, shock, and all related moving parts, pivots, and bearings. Take care of all the scheduled maintenance you were supposed to do every “X” number of hours, but didn’t do once all this year. Fine, you didn’t want to give up a weekend of perfect riding to have your fork serviced. But you know deep down that you’re way, way past your service interval, even though these are by far the most expensive parts of any bike. Use this as the chance to get that custom fork tune, or add tokens like you’ve been talking about all summer, but do it, and do it now. Because if you thought the wait to cables changed in the spring was agonizing …