msdumo

I have 4 bikes; 2 hybrids, 1 road and 1 mtb.
Most of my rides are 30k(5 mi) on pavement 4-6 days a week. The MTB sees gravel and sometimes muddy wet trails.
How often should I clean and lube the chain? ( I use dry lube and wet lube on the MTB )
Should it be based on mileage or just a seasonal thing.
Seasonally, but not every year, I clean and grease wheel bearings, give the bikes a good cleaning, adjust brakes and derailers and check chain wear.
I never use a pressure washer to wash my bikes. The MTB is the only one that sees a lot of dirt.
I check air pressure before every ride. (45 psi for 26 x 1.95 tires, 80 psi for 700 x 35c and 110 psi for 700 x 23c)
I just wipe the bikes down with Spray Nine or soapy water usually mid season.
I let the MTB if muddy, dry and than use a brush to get most of the loose dirt off before I wipe down.
I like to use a leaf blower if the bike gets wet from a cleaning or I was out for a ride in the rain.
So give me the good, the bad or the ugly on what you think TLC should be on a bike?

cxwrench

First, 30k is not 5mi...it's 18.
Lube your chain when it needs it. You'll know...probably 100ish with dry lube, maybe 2 or 3 times that w/ wet lube...if your dry lube means thin and wet is thick. When the chain starts looking dirty w/ the wet lube at worst. I clean and lube the chain on my mtb every ride. I clean my mtb every ride, that includes suds and a hose. I think that letting the mtb dry after a muddy ride is the absolute worst thing you can do. Wash it as soon as you get home, it's much easier. Leaf blower is fine, or wipe dry w/ a towel. If it's cold and the bike won't really air dry quickly the leaf blower is great.
If I were riding my road bike 3-5 times a week in the dry I'd probably wash it once a week. The less you let them get dirty the easier it is to clean them. I have a bit of bike washing experience having been a pro team mechanic from '04 to '17.

cyccommute 

Far less than you think. People like to futz with their bikes but really don’t need to do as much as they think they do. If you pick the right components, you won’t need to do much of anything at all for years on end.

When it needs it is the best answer. What many people don’t realized is that wet chain lube (oil-based) needs to be replaced and refreshed after riding in the wet just like dry lubricants need. They also don’t realize that dry lubricants don’t need to be replaced as often as they think. Relubing after 100 miles is excessive for a wax based lubricant. I don’t usually keep track of how often I lube a chain but I had the opportunity to do so about 5 years ago. I put a new chain on at the start of a tour and went off to do a 1500 mile, 5 week tour. I only use wax based chain lubricant and I relubed 3 times. I relubed after a long day in the rain at about 200 miles. The next time was at 800 miles (600 miles on the lubricant) after I washed the bike at a carwash and nearly 600 miles of dirt roads. (I was going to stay in a hotel and decided that I didn’t want to take a dirty bike into the room.) I lubed the chain again when I got home after another 700 miles of pavement and dirt riding. I replaced the chain after the tour at about 3500 miles total mileage on the chain. This frequency and total chain mileage matches what I get around home.

Again, if you choose the right components, you won’t need to clean or grease the wheel bearings or headset or bottom bracket or even the pedals. You should adjust the brakes and derailers when they need it which may or may not be often. Check the chain more often than yearly. With the distances you are doing, you should probably check the chain monthly to quarterly.

Your choice but there really isn’t anything wrong with using power washers (or carwash). Perhaps don’t put the nozzle right at bearings, especially cup and cone type bearings but if you are using in cartridge bearings, there’s less worry. It’s quick and easy, especially in winter when getting salt off is probably more important than getting off mud and dirt.

Whatever floats your boat. I don’t wash my bikes (8 of them plus my wife’s 4) once a year. I probably have tire flung cow pies remnants from 2 years ago still on one of my mountain bikes. My other bikes aren’t much cleaner. The drivetrains are clean and function perfectly, the bikes are just dirty. Three of the 8 are titanium so it doesn’t matter what is on them.

Meh. If you ride hard enough, the mud comes off. Personally, I try not to ride on muddy trails.

Pop N Wood

Have to agree with everything cyccocommute said.

msdumo

You are right 30k is 18 miles. Most people overstate their distance. I probably was including the seniors discount on the mileage.
At 70 yrs of age I bike and also do 8K (5Mi) runs 2-3 times a week.
I just tell everyone that I am 21 with 49 yrs of experience.

Thanks

andrewclaus

You're doing more and better than I do for routine care. In addition to what you're doing, to me it's all about paying attention to the bike and being proactive. I often ride long days with fellow volunteer mechanics, and a quiet bike is a point of pride for all of us. Check the chain every 1000 miles and replace when indicated. Don't neglect the slightest changes in shifting and braking. If you're adjusting a barrel adjuster frequently, find out why. I should service my road bike headset more frequently than I do (every couple of years), but I pay frequent attention to its adjustment. I service the cup and cone hubs every year (3 to 5,000 miles), and check for play and free rotation every time I add air.

Iride01 

Nice thing is that you can be a finicky as you want. If fiddling with things and spending more time with your bike disassembled soothes you more than time you spend riding, then that is actually okay with me. I'm more the other way though. I generally wait for something to actually cause problems or break. And I think it's cheaper than getting too wrapped up in preventative maintenance.

Retro Grouch 

Every time that I ride I make myself aware of any maintenance that I think should be done to that bike. Then I make an effort to get it done before I it again. That's pretty much all that I do.

How much preventive maintenance do you do on your car? For me it's every 5 to 7 thousand miles. That's a whole year of bicycling for most riders and a car is a much more complicated machine than a bicycle.

andrewclaus

I notice you didn't say the car is more expensive than the bike, because for many of us that's not the case.

I have worked on bikes in a volunteer shop alongside auto and truck mechanics, and it's funny to see them get frustrated over some small adjustment they're not used to making. One diesel guy said, "You'd think this would be easier."

ridelikeaturtle

Great advice that I consistently try to relate to people who ask me to "sort out" their bikes. Quite often, they're just overly filthy (and need new brake pads).

I've found multi-purpose cleaning wipes (like you'd use in the kitchen) to be very good at giving a cleaned bike a nice final wipe-down, especially if you have to use a lot of WD-40 to clean road grime and ****e off your bike after a week's worth (or more) of cycling.

epnnf

I dont think anybody mentioned brakes. Every ride, I blow out dust with compressed air, then wipe disc with alcohol pad. Also every ride, I clean the chain with rag and/or toothbrush. I hardly ever wipe down frame

Rolla

Clean = quiet. Plus, when it comes time for repairs and adjustments you don’t have to deal with months-old road or trail sludge.

Like cleaning your bathroom, if you do it on the regular, it only takes a few minutes. If you let go for a couple of months, it’s a project.

djb

howdy old Calabogie feller (boy, havent been there in decades)
the most important thing is to keep on top of maintaining the drivetrain clean. Lubing the chain with whatever you lube you want, but wiping down the chain for excess lube is the ticket. Depending on the lube you use, and if you ride in wet or very dusty, wiping the chain after a ride or three with a rag takes maybe 10 seconds?
Totally worth it, while you're at it, use same rag to wipe the rear derailleur jockey wheels on both sides, and a quick wipe of the chainrings too--bingo, in less time that it took me to type all this out, you will stop gunk from accumulating, and like someone said with the bathroom analogy (I use the kitchen analogy clean up myself ) if you do it regularly, its fast and easy and less work.

once in a while, I use a rag to "floss the cassette", wheel on bike, chain in smallest cog, and you pull rag upwards to clean a section, down to turn cassette a bit, up again to clearn all around---easy peasy and fast. Again, do it once in a while and its fast easy and you dont have a hard job of accumulated sticky crud gunk

if you want to clean frame etc all the time, go for it, I'm too lazy and concentrate on drivetrain and keeping rims and brake pads clean after wet riding right away upon return, keeps braking at most efficient.

happy fall riding

rydabent

As my whole working life was a mechanical/electronics tech, I can assure you that preventative maintenance will prevent you from having to walk home.

Before every ride I wipe down the chain. I use Mobil One oil, and oil as needed. I always top off the tire pressure before every ride. That way by checking the tire pressure I can determine if I have an unexpected slow leak I had better check out before a ride. And a quick check is performed on the whole bike.

Every Feb, I live in the snow belt, I do a complete go over of my bike and trike. EVERYTHING is checked for tightness and lubed. I simply do not want to walk home, and I never had. BTW I also have a mini bike shop in my trunk pack for any unforeseen emergency. It is rather amazing how many times I have stopped to helped other cyclist that simply were not prepared.

cyccommute 

While I agree, I take a very different approach from most people. I keep the drivetrain clean by using a lubricant that doesn't make the drivetrain dirty. Both of the pictures below were taken of bikes that have been ridden many miles just prior to the picture (the Moots was in the middle of a 30 mile mostly trail ride and the Specialized was in the middle of a 20 mile dirt road ride). Both bikes have not been “cleaned” in a few thousand miles. I can go out and rub my hands over the chain and come away with nearly clean hands. The chains are cleaned before installation and they aren’t cleaned again because they don’t need it.

I don’t have to wipe the chain before, during, or after a ride. I am often told here on the Forums that I’m damaging my bike by doing this but my chains and drivetrain last as long as other people report. I just don’t have to deal with the mess.

msdumo

Calabogie is getting pretty busy this year. Covid is sending a lot of city people out to God's country. Come and see us again.

Like the idea of a fast wipe down on the chain after every ride.
I just did my first floss on the cassette. I did allow too much buildup on the cassette which only made the chain get dirtier.
The regime of cleaning bike and chains is a new thing for me.
I added quick links to 3 of my bikes making chain removal easy and better for cleaning and checking chain wear.

easyupbug 

With way too many C&V bikes to keep track of milage this is the key for me, and like Rolla said I value a clean quit ride and get after any issue immediately.

Sal Bandini

100% agree.

I half-ass lubed my chain once and replaced it at 4,000, and I rode it in rain, dirt roads, and once in the snow. I have never washed my bike, but have wiped off some excess dirt and mud. I get dressed, hop on the bike and ride. If the tires seem low I check them and add air. Other than that I ride the heck out of it and while riding think of what I will do with all my free time not spent obsessing over my bike's cleanliness, or lack thereof.