- In today's episode,
I'm gonna be showing you the basic ABC check
that every bike owner and rider should know
for bike maintenance.
(soft music)
Hey, welcome, I'm Arleigh and this is my YouTube channel
where I help you bike more and worry less.
Today we're gonna be going over the ABC check,
which is the basic bike maintenance
that I think every single person
that owns a bike should know,
and this is something that you're gonna be doing monthly,
if not more frequently, depending on how much you ride.
The ABC check works
regardless of what type of bike you have.
Mountain bike, on a road or cross bike,
or everyday commuter or hybrid bike.
The ABC check stands for, A for air and tires,
B for brakes, C for chain and cassette.
And then check is a general check over
of all bolts and frame.
So let's get started with A.
A for air can mean different things
depending on what type of bike you have.
For most, at the very minimum,
it's gonna mean air in your tires
and checking the wear of your tires.
So I'm gonna pump up my tires every week, if not more often,
depending how much pressure my tires take.
If I have a road bike,
I'm gonna be pumping it up almost every time I ride.
If I have a commuter bike, I'm gonna check it every week.
And if I have a mountain bike,
depending on how often I ride,
I might be checking it every two to three days.
The next thing I check is the wear of my tires,
just making sure that I don't have cuts in my tires,
any premature wear or if I've started rounding off my tires,
so it has square top.
On mountain bike tires
I'm making sure the lugs are still there,
and that the stiffens inside of the cuts in my tires,
that are designed to be there,
aren't worn out because that allows my tires to flex,
and that's a wear indicator as well
to make sure my tire is not worn out.
Now if I have a mountain bike, this is about time
that I'm going to check the air in my shocks.
So it's gonna be my front fork and my rear shock.
Depending on what type of bike you have
will change what type of air pressure you put in,
but just know you need a different kind of pump for that.
Now moving on to brakes.
Brakes are pretty straightforward.
You wanna check the wear life of your brake pad.
And on a rubber style brake pad,
there's typically a wear indicator
so you know if you've worn down the brake pad.
On a mountain bike or a disc brake,
you're gonna have to actually look in the caliper
to make sure that you have some pad life
meaning you can see pad and not just metal.
And then the next thing I check
is to make sure the pad doesn't have any metal bits
or glass embedded in the rubber,
and finally I check my braking surface.
On a rim brake, that's gonna be the actual wheel
to make sure it's not worn down,
or I don't have any pieces of glass stuck in my wheel.
If it's a disc brake, I'm gonna be checking the rotor
making sure if I spin the wheel,
it doesn't rub and if I grab the brakes
it doesn't sound funny either squealing
or feeling really rough.
A lot of times that's an indicator
that your rotor might be worn out
or you got something on the rotor surface
that needs to be cleaned off.
Moving on to C, chain and cassette.
About once a month I use my handy-dandy chain wear indicator
and I check my chain's life.
If I've recently ridden a ton in crappy weather,
I'm gonna check it immediately
because a lot of times that snow, mud, ice
can wear down my chain even quicker than normal.
And when your chain wears out,
it's actually wearing out the bushings.
So it's making more room in between those links.
And when that happens,
it can also wear down your cassette
and then your chain rings.
If you check your chain often enough,
you can sometimes catch it before it wears out too much
and starts wearing out your cassette and chain ring.
Therefore you can replace your chain
and not replace the whole drivetrain
meaning chain, cassette and chain rings.
And in your drivetrain,
the chain is typically the least expensive.
So if you can get two to three chains
for every one cassette,
you're gonna be saving yourself a lot of money.
Also it's a lot safer, when your chain starts wearing out
it will actually slip over gears,
and sometimes if you're going uphill or trying to sprint,
that can hurt pretty badly
because your gears are slipping over
and you take a crotch into the top tube,
so you wanna make sure that you're checking that chain life.
So once I've checked all that, I'm gonna lube my chain.
Lubing your chain
is something very specific to your riding style,
where you ride, what kind of weather you ride in.
So you might wanna consult your local bike shop.
So to lube your chain, you're gonna do three steps.
So the first step is cleaning off your chain.
You can do that with a rag, old sock, whatever you need.
Grab the bottom of your chain
and backpedal three to four rotations
to make sure you've got the whole thing.
You don't have to grab it tightly,
you're just grabbing enough to remove all the excess dirt
and grime and grease that has built up on your chain.
Next, you're gonna lube your chain,
and again, you're gonna backpedal
while lightly putting a stream of lube on your chain
as you backpedal again three to four times.
I'm a big fan of lubing after a ride
and letting it sit and soak into my chain,
being mindful that it might drip on the ground
so I put a towel under it,
but that allows it to really soak into the chain
'cause the goal of lubing your chain
is to actually lube inside of the bushings
and not lube the access on the outside.
So if possible, lube and let it sit,
and then before my next ride,
I take that towel again and grab my chain
and backpedal off the excess lube.
Therefore I'm not picking up any dirt or grime
with lube that's sitting on the outside of my chain
and I know the inside of my chain is nice and moving freely
and lubed up properly.
The last piece of the ABC check is the check over.
This is when you're gonna take your multi-tool
or some sort of Allen set.
If you have a carbon bike or a higher-end aluminum bike,
you're gonna wanna use torque wrenches for this.
And this is when you check all of the bolts
from your handlebar and stem, your wheels,
your seatpost and seats, your brakes,
any bolt, you wanna check with either your multi-tool
or a torque set.
And if you're doing this once a month
or anytime you've crashed,
it's gonna do you a huge service
'cause your bike isn't going to crap out on you.
And during the check, I personally wipe down my bike.
I'm a huge fan of the Pro Towels from ProGold,
they're industrial strength,
so they will dry out your hands,
but I use this on everything other than braking services,
just to clean off my bike and inspect the frame
as I'm wiping it down.
My mountain bike, my road bike,
a lot of my bikes are carbon
and you might not see the bubbling in your paint
or a crack underneath your head tube
if there's dirt built up, and a clean bike is a faster bike.
So I'm big fan of the Pro Towels,
if you don't wanna invest in this,
I also use Simple Green diluted with just a rag
and just spray it down.
The Simple Green's nice 'cause it is a true degreaser.
So you can clean off your chain and cassette
and things like that with Simple Green.
Just make sure you dilute it per instructions
and keep it out of the hands of children.
That was your basic ABC check.
It takes me less than five minutes to do this.
As you become more comfortable,
it will take you less and less time,
but it's gonna save you
a lot of on-the-side-of-the-road emergencies.
It's gonna keep your products
or chain and cassette, brakes lasting a lot longer.
A lot of people either ride their bike ragged,
don't keep it maintained,
wonder why they're always getting flats,
wonder why they're always wearing out their bike parts.
And if you just take five minutes
every couple of hundred miles to check over your bike,
make sure everything's working,
pumped up and braking properly,
you and your bike are gonna last a lot longer.
I'll put links below to all the products
that I use for my general check over.
If you have any comments or questions
or if I missed something,
make sure you put it in the comment section below.
I'm sorry if the train noise was super loud,
I won't be reshooting this,
but hopefully you found this helpful and a good resource.
If you have any questions as I mentioned,
put in the comment section below.
If this is something that interests you,
make sure to hit subscribe
because we're gonna be doing this style of how-to tips
once a week for the next few months
to see what you guys think.
If you enjoyed this how-to style,
make sure you hit the subscribe button below
and give me a like so that I know that you enjoyed it.
I'm gonna be doing this how-to style once a week
and I would love to hear what you like to learn
about bike maintenance.
So until next time, this was Arleigh,
thank you for joining me and remember,
bike more and worry less.