Take the time… Check Your Bike!
Hey guys, I hope you all had fun at the Back 40 race! Since I’m stuck out in Lethbridge these days and couldn’t make it to the race, I figured I would do the next best thing and head out to Whistler Mountain Bike Park and do some fun riding there!
David Janzen, Kevin Neufeld, Rodney Neufeld, Jeffrey Elias (I went a little early!). William Janzen took the picture.
The Janzen brothers along with the Neufeld brothers were heading that direction so I went out to join them for a few days of riding the “best bike destination in the world.” And I must say, I don’t think whoever came up with that title is over exaggerating! I rented an amazing 2010 Rocky Mountain Flatline Pro from one of the local shops and ripped up the infamous A-Line (along with many other trails) repeatedly over the next 3 days. I won’t give you guys a super long story about it…but just know that sometime in your life, you should give yourself a chance to ride there! It’s so much fun and worth every penny of the outrageous hotel prices, rental prices, food prices, lift ticket prices…I think you get the idea..haha!
Rocky Mountain Flatline Pro!! (yes, I bottomed the Boxxer fork a few times!...I'm a sloppy jumper, ok?!)
But, back to my original topic…I actually didn’t want to talk about biking in Whistler…
Recently, I guess I’ve been a little sloppy with keeping my bike properly tightened and in check. A few weeks ago I thought I had bent my large chainring because everytime I shifted on to it, the chain would skip off and back on to the middle ring. I was kinda worried because I didn’t want to replace my chainrings, but upon further inspection I noticed that it was just loose. The little bolts/nuts weren’t even finger tight anymore, so I tightened them all up and kept riding. Then, a few days after coming back from Whistler, I had only lightly threaded my pedals back into my cranks (I rode clipped in at Whistler) and I had yet to tighten my pedals properly…Of course I forgot this, and after jumping off a curb I heard a loud cracking noise and one of my shoes had a pedal attached to it but not to the bike. Now I was really scared…I didn’t want to replace the whole crank arm! But somehow I got lucky and only the first ring of thread broke off cleanly so I was able to re-thread my pedal tightly without any problems. Then yesterday, I went for another ride and while riding I shifted into the granny ring and I heard a loud popping noise, I immediately stopped and saw that 3 out of the 4 bolts/nuts for my granny ring were missing! So i tightened the 1 bolt I had left and shifted manually into the middle ring and resumed riding.
Not my cranks, thankfully.
Before a ride I always do the usual things like check tire pressure, lube the chain, check the fork and shock “squishy-ness” but I often overlook some of the things I just presume to be tight. Maybe I’m the only one that doesn’t check the “other stuff” on his bike often enough, but I figured I would just remind you guys to double check your bike just to make sure. It’ll only take a few minutes and it could save you a few hundred bucks on a stripped crank arm!
I figured I would make a small list of stuff that should be checked (I’ll probably forget something, so feel free to add it into the comments)
- tire pressure
- spoke tension
- side-to-side play in your hubs (wiggle the rim sideways)
- brake pad thickness
- rotor bolts still all there and tight?
- brake caliper tightened properly to frame (rear) and fork (front), centered properly
- headset play
- fork and shock pressures
- cockpit components tight and centered (headset, handlebar, stem, grips, shifters, brakes, bike computer, etc)
- seat tightened and centered properly, not past the max extension?
- do shift cables pull hard? does the bike shift when and where you want it to?
- lube the chain regularly (preferably after each ride)
- jockey wheels on derailleur clean? rear cassette clean?
- suspension pivots tight?
- derailleurs and derailleur hanger tight?
- chainrings tight?
- cranks tight?
- pedals tight?
- front and rear quick release skewers tightened properly?
That’s as many as I can think of right now. I really hope you can run through this checklist without finding anything out of place.
Love and share the ride whenever possible!
-Jeff
July 14th, 2010 at 11:06 pm
Jeff, glad you could go with that fantastic group of guys! Wow.
I’ve had tightening trouble too, lost 3 of 5 bolts from my fixed gear chainring. Another thing to watch on bikes is seized bolts – doesn’t hurt to loosen, lube and retighten a lot of the bolts on the bike.