Last Sunday, a friend and I treated ourselves to a new cycling route. We drove to the beginning of 0 Avenue (you read that correctly) and cycled along the U.S. border. No American roads connect to the avenue, which will take you as far east as Cultus Lake.
The beauty of 0 Avenue is that its uninterrupted, relatively straight and cuts alongside farms with only a handful of stop signs or lights. It is the perfect place to log hundreds of base miles, which are key when youre training for any endurance event and especially important if your goal is to ride a Gran Fondo this year.
I picked up my friend at at 7:30 a.m. As I was placing her bike on the rack of my car, I noticed the state of her 2010 Cervelo R3.
The frame was splattered with dried mud from two or three previous rides. The chain and cog set were gummed up with dirt and too much oil. I could even tell what kind of sport drink she had on the last ride from the pink residue splashed on her top tube.
Most of us buy a bike, ride it, put it away and repeat this cycle until something breaks down. Ive been guilty of this, too.
But I soon realized you can only treat your bike this way if you have a lot of money to buy a new one or can afford to ride another bike while you wait for yours to be repaired. If you want your bike to work as efficiently as possible and be safe to ride, you need to consistently tend to your bike in these basic ways.
Clean it
The first and most important thing you can do for your bike is clean it, preferably after every ride. Cleaning the bike removes road grit, grease, sweat and whatever sweet drink you were using as fuel that day, which corrodes and damages your bike and its parts. If you clean your bike regularly, you probably wont have any mechanical issues for most of the season, saving you time and money in the bike shops.
Look at it
While you clean the bike, you should be looking for any wear or damage such as cracks in the frame, worn brake pads and worn or damaged tires. Specifically, these three things are the most dangerous and should be dealt with before riding the bike again.
Replace its parts
After your season is over, you will need to take some of these savings and invest them back into your bike. If you are logging a ton of miles, you will want to replace a few components to prevent further wear on more expensive parts. Replacing your chain, brake pads and tires after every season is a good practice and will save you money in the future.
Maintain it
Having a full tune up is always a good idea right before you pack up your bike for the winter. The last thing you want to do is bring out a rusty bike after five months in storage. If you plan on riding your bike on an indoor trainer during the winter, replacing parts and getting a tune up would be ideally done after the winter season before you take it back on the road.
Adding a little preventative maintenance can add years to your bike and its parts. Once you get into the habit, cleaning your bike after every ride should feel as normal as brushing your teeth before bedit just takes a bit of practice.
Kristina Bangma is a coach, personal trainer and writer with a love of riding and racing. Email questions to kris@ getfitwithkris.com.
