
During the winter months, your bike will be prone to picking up more dirt from the worse weather as well as general wear and tear. Bike maintenance can feel like a chore but it is best to get into good habits with looking after your bike to ensure that it is running smoothly and looking at its best. Here are five of the best tips to help you know how to look after a bike and keep your bike in tip-top shape.
Pump up your tyres
This may seem like an obvious tip, but making sure your tyres are properly inflated can be overlooked but shouldn’t be. Having your tyres at the right pressure ensures that you’re not working and peddling harder than you need to when using your bike. Making sure your rear tyre has a slightly higher pressure is important as this takes more of the rider's weight. A key tool for this is a quality floor pump that has a pressure gauge too, to help you make sure that you’re inflating your tyres correctly.
Avoiding creaks and squeaks
This is an easy part of bike maintenance to dismiss as you automatically think it's a more cosmetic issue but on the contrary, when your bike is making these noises, it’s best to not ignore them as it is trying to tell you something. Wherever the noise is coming from, it is best to take it apart, lube the smaller parts and reinstall. This also gives you the opportunity to take a closer look at the smaller nuts and bolts of your bike to ensure they are all in order too.
Them’s the brakes
Making sure your brakes are all in order is arguably the most important part of a checkup of your bike. Make sure to keep an eye out for general wear and tear of your brake pads is a key component to ensure that your bike is working to its best ability whenever you take it out for a cycle and also gives you an extra level of comfort knowing that your brakes are in working order.
The nuts and bolts of your bike
However small these may be, making sure that your nuts and bolts are secure should be of top priority. An easy mistake to make is fastening your bolts too tight. This may seem that you’re just making parts of your bike more securely fastened but it will end up deteriorating parts of your bike quicker than you’d like.
All the gear with an idea
To make sure all parts of your bike are running smoothly and to give it a quick tune-up, you will need the right set of tools to do so. At Gtechniq, they have the ideal kit to help you keep your bike as new as the day you bought it. With the Ultimate Bike Care Kit, you have everything for your bike care needs. Not only does this kit include everything you need to make sure your bike is running properly such as cleaners and degreasers, but it also includes detailing products which will help keep your bike looking brand new.
Time to hit the road
After ticking off all of these checks, you should now be raring to get back out on your bike with the added security of feeling safe in the knowledge that you can look after your bike's maintenance and know that when something doesn’t feel right, you can always take another look.