Ride your bike enough, and before long it'll start feeling...tired.
It's hard to put exactly into words what it feels like, but in essence it won't feel as
crisp, the drivetrain won't feel as sharp, it just feels tired.
But all you might need to do is a 1 hour tune-up and it gets back to it's former glory. I look
at maybe doing this to my bikes every 6 months to a year, depending how much each one gets ridden.
That means a thorough clean, fresh grease in the bearings and on the seatpost, new cables,
a new chain and new bar tape. Yeah, it'll cost a bit of money, but it saves cash in
the long run and it stops you buying a new bike. If you'd like more detail on how to
do any of these individual tasks, these links will become clickable at the end of the video,
taking you to then to the relevant how to.
To start with, it needs a thorough clean. If you haven't seen it already, check out
our video explaining just how to do that.
What you won't need to do though, is clean the chain. Because I'm getting rid of it,
I'll just take it off now and stick it straight in the bin.
First up, I know that the type of conditions that I ride in really mean that I have to
take good care of my headset bearings. Grit and wet can infiltrate that bottom brace there
in particular and it can really nail the bearing.
So take the wheel out, top cap off, stem off, and drop the forks out. You can see that this
lower bearing is caked in crap, so give it a good clean with a rag, getting all the old
grease off, and don't neglect the inside of the frame too.
While I'm here, I'll do the top brace as well. Pack it all out with some grease and re-assemble.
Now while the chain is off, I take the opportunity to check out the bearings in my bottom bracket.
Give them a good spin and if they're anything other than buttery-smooth I'll think about
replacing them. Yeah, it costs a bit of money, but this is after all a thorough service and
a nice, fresh bottom bracket makes a big, big difference.
I always seem to be replacing my brake and gear cables, but with good reason. They regularly
get full of grit, and when they do, they absolutely destroy braking and gear shifting quality.
We've got full videos explaining how to do this, and when you get comfortable with it,
it's a really quick job. So as part of this service, I do precisely that.
To replace your cables of course you need to get rid of your bar tape. This stuff is
absolutely rank, so it's a perfect opportunity to take it off and get rid of it.
Conveniently, I tend to find that my brake cables and my bar tape tend to wear at a similar
rate, so when I do replace the cables, I just replace the tape.
Changing your cables isn't difficult, but you need to know the process for doing it.
We've got step-by-step guides, and to watch them just click on these links at the end
of the video.
Having replaced the cables, we obviously can't actually index the gears until we get our
new chain on. So take your new chain, measure it up compared to the old one so that it's
exactly the same length, and then just pop it on.
Right, we're nearly there. Chain's on, cables are on, just time to do the indexing now.
We've got full videos explaining exactly how to do that to your gears, so click on those
in the final end board.
Just two more jobs to do. Before I tackle the bar tape, I need to get my hands clean.
I'm putting white bar tape back on, there's nothing worse than getting smudges on your
brand new bar tape.
Something that I've forgotten to do too many times is that you should always have a look
to see whether your seat post needs re-greasing. This is carbon on carbon so it's not too bad,
but if you've got an alloy frame and a carbon post or an alloy post and a carbon frame,
the two can actually pretty much just glue themselves together, and I've lost plenty
of carbon posts and alloy frames in the process. It's a good idea, then, to remind yourself
to check it out every now and then.
Right, you're bike is good to go, it should feel like new. Yes, you've had to spend a
little bit of money, but you can buy all those parts really quite cheaply, and it's significantly
cheaper than buying an entirely new bike.
So, that means a thorough clean, fresh grease in the bearings and on the seatpost, new cables,
a new chain and new bar tape.
If you need to know how to do any of these things, remember that you can just click on
these links to watch the relevant how to.