We’re going to do a spring bike inspection for beginners today. We’re doing this because of the BRAG spring tune up, which is April 13-16 this year. We want to encourage beginners, for a variety of reasons, and we want everybody to have a pleasant biking experience. At the Firefly, pretty bed and breakfast near Madison GA, we are all about sharing the fun.
Who are we to be telling you this?
Well, we think biking is one of the purest forms of human-scale living, and we’ve biked all around the area in the interest of putting our guests onto something fun.
We’ve also done some stories on this and have done a lot of the course for the BRAG spring tune up. We have our connections.
Why are we telling you this now?
Well, as we’ve suggested in the past, bike repair is a bit of a lost art, in this, the age of the disposable bike. If you find out your bike is actually a little ragged, you’re going to have to take it to Athens to a bike shop. Of course, everybody else in the state will have this same idea. You will want to get it back in time to ride when the weather turns good.
Spring Bike Inspection for Beginners
It’s like this. It takes just a little bit of knowledge of your bike just so that you can make sure it’ll be reliable when you do BRAG. There is nothing that will ruin your day like having a mechanical failure, all dressed up in your cute outfit.
Side topic: You may actually be shopping for a used bike. Also you may be expanding your bike fleet and you can use some of this information to make better choices.
We’re going to do this in order of the thing that if it breaks will make your life the most miserable.
The bike we’re looking at has been ridden about 3000 miles, and is six years old. This probably makes it a typical well-loved bike.
Cute Outfit
Some people need a new biking outfit occasionally to inspire them to ride. You want to look good standing around the patio at Amici or around the Community Roots drinking some kind of carrot drink. If you need an excuse for a new cute outfit, feel free. If anyone objects, tell them we said it was OK.
Tires and Tubes
Tires and Tubes are considered “consumable.” That is, eventually, they get used up and you have to replace them. So, if your bike is well-used, you’ll eventually have to do this. The first thing to inspect is the tread surface, which is the part that contacts the road.
Modern bike tires are a bit of a miracle, by the way. The weight of the rider, plus the bike, is supported by a little tube of rubber an inch wide.
Your normal road bike tire is not made for traction, because it’s made to give low rolling resistance. What that means is that it prioritizes being able to pedal the bike more easily.
Firstly, when a bike tire gets too worn, there actually starts to be little fabric spots in the tread surface. When this happens it’s time for a new tire or two. If only one of your tires is worn, do you want to replace both? Your bike mechanic will try to talk you into this, because that is the mechanic upsell training.
Secondly, these things are vulnerable to cutting from some roadside object. Here is an example. The way this works is “crack propagation” which is once a tire get a little cut in it, the cut tends to grow. It is not unheard of for a tire to develop a bulge the size of an egg if you hit it just wrong.
So a quick check of this will potentially save you from having to push your cool bike to the rest stop and call for the sag wagon.
Tubes
The story on tubes is a bit nuanced. This is because of the choice you have of proactively changing your tubes. Once your tire is properly seated on the rim, every time you remove it risks damaging the bead, which is the wire thing that holds it on.
If you are going to get new tires anyway, it makes sense to change the tubes. But if the tubes are fine, and holding air, and the tires are good, there is wisdom in leaving them alone.
Brake Pads
The hard core bikers will tell you that brakes are for losers. But these are also some of the people that have the serious head injuries when they crash and burn on that long downhill.
Brake pads are another of those consumable items. They squeeze against the rim of your wheel, and that is what stops you. So, you should inspect these and make sure they are in good condition.
Truing the Wheels
Oh yeah we should talk about this. If you felt like turning your bike upside down, and spinning the wheels, you may notice a condition of being wobbly. This is because your wheels get “out of true”, particularly if your bike has spent time lying on its side, having stuff thrown on top of it.
You may notice it more when you try to use the brakes.
Your bike mechanic will recommend spending a few minutes with a spoke wrench to adjust them so they run straight.
Bike wheels will last for a long time running “out of true” but they will make you miserable, because you’ll notice a thump-thump-thump on every revolution. A responsible bike mechanic will re-true the wheels if he or she replaces the tires and tubes, but this is a maintenance item that will make your riding experience more pleasant.
Spring Bike Inspection for Beginners: The Cables
Most modern bikes, like this one, have four cables. These cables control the brakes and the shifting mechanism.
The cables can tell a story, from the standpoint that they are very susceptible to rusting when wet. So if you’re buying a bike, and the jerk that is selling it swears that he kept it in the garage, but the cables are rusty, you know that he or she is spinning a tale.
Cables practically never break in the middle. They always break in two spots: any time they need to turn a corner, such as when they run through the shifter mechanism or the brake handles. The other place is at the end, where they’re screwed into the mechanism. This can be either the brake assembly or the shifting gadget.
So, you’re going to check those places for cable wear, and if it looks like your cable is frayed, you may want to get it replaced.
The effect of a broken brake cable is more dangerous but less annoying than a shifter cable brake. This depends on whether you know what you’re doing. You can sometimes manually put your chain on some set of sprockets that will get you to the next stop. This will get your cute biker gloves greasy, and is not desirable. The other option is the possibility that you’ll be stuck on some high gear going uphill, or even worse, on some low gear thus not getting anywhere. Either of those things will annoy you because the modern bike is set up for efficiency.
Shoes and Clips
You don’t think of this too much, until there is a problem. Your cool bike shoes have metal clips that clip into spring loaded slots on your pedals. This makes them easier to use your thigh muscles to pull up on the pedal at the same time you’re pushing down, and spreading the effort.
But, those clips get out of alignment, and also, the pedals themselves get worn down so that your foot will slip out. This is not as desirable.
A lot of beginning bikers solve this problem by using regular push pedals, like you’d find on an old Schwinn. This allows you to use cute street shoes, and not worry about the pedals.
But, if you don’t want to expose yourself as a poseur, you may wish to inspect both your shoes and pedals, and upgrade if it looks like they’re showing signs of wear, like these are.
This particular set of pedals has been on about four bikes previous to this. That’s why they look a bit experienced.
The Seat
We should probably have a talk about this too. Harder core bike riders are very particular about their seat. What is a cool seat for them may be horribly uncomfortable for you. The most common failure mode for a seat is that it gets out of whack at some point during the ride, usually when you lay your bike down in the grass somewhere.
So, if you’re committed to a given seat, it makes sense to take it out for a few rides. You can confirm that it is in the right position. Then, it’s easy to adjust if needed. What’s terrible is that you get about 50 miles down some 100 mile route, and decide that your seat is killing you.
We indicated in one of the previous articles that the best way to not have issues with your seat is to ride your bike. You need a break in period, and what gets broken in is your bottom.
The Shifting Mechanisms and Chain
Most modern bikes have two sets of gears. The front one is called the “crankset”, and the back one is called the “cassette”. This is one of the ways to tell an experienced biker from a poseur. If a biker says “yeah, I just changed to a 32-tooth mid-gear on my crankset” you know that he or she knows the lingo.
“Shifter thingy” is not a generally accepted term.
These things are controlled by the shifter cables, and the most common failure is that they get bent up and/or knocked loose when you lay your bike down.
If your shifters are misaligned, you will have an annoying grinding sound when you try to shift. In the worst case, you’ll end up not being able to shift, which is annoying.
Also, because these things are close to the ground, there is a tendency for them to get coated with road grime and not move freely.
The gears themselves: These things are made to be light. They’re not necessarily made to live forever. At some point, if the bike is old enough, your bike mechanic might suggest that you replace either the front or rear gears themselves, if the teeth get misshapen, like some of these are
The Chain Itself
The most common failure on the chain is stretching. Each one of those links is a little pivot, and there gets to be sloppiness if the bike is old. The combination of a sloppy chain, misaligned shifting mechanism and stretchy cables can usually be adjusted into some sort of functionality.
But it is better for the whole system to be working efficiently. That way that when you try to shift, you can.
You know what’s bad? Being tired, on some long uphill, and trying to get into a low gear. Sometimes the chain will drop all the way off, and you’ll end up in a situation where you can’t pedal, and have no momentum, at which point your toe gets caught in the clip and you flop over in slow motion.
Here is a demo. This is a bit technical for you, a beginner, but might give you some information.
Cost of Accessories
| Item | Cost | Link |
| Cute Outfit | $100 | Lightbox |
| Tire | $20-$100 | Performance Bicycles |
| Tube | $8 | Performance Bicycles |
| Front Derailleur | $23-$500 depending on fanciness | Performance Bicycles |
| Brake Cable | $12 | Amazon |
| Brake Pad | $17 | Amazon |
| Crankset | $50-$150 depending on fanciness | Shimano |
| Cassette | $50-$100 depending on Fanciness | The Pro’s Closet |
| Bike Shoes | $80 depending on cuteness | REI |
| Pedal Clips | $50 | Amazon |
| Seat | $50 | Bakcou |
Cost for all of this
We should probably talk about this. Depending on the exact size, shape, and your desired level of eliteness, if you were to go through and replace all of these things that need to be replaced, you could pretty easily end up spending $500-$600 for an assortment of parts.
Do you really want to do this, compared to upgrading to a new road bike? Well it depends on your budget, and also how much you’re going to pay the bike shop for labor.
But you can still get a nice, light, carbon fiber bike with a lot of the same accessorites for $1200 or so, if you wanted to.
So it’s a bit of an investment. We have already talked about how we are in the era of the disposable bike. You will have to take this into consideration when you are there at the bike shop with the mechanic trying to talk you into a lot of upgrades.
Spring Bike Inspection for Beginners: The Rider
Depending on who you are you may think that you can roll off the sofa and do this. Brush the potato chip crumbs off your shirt, and put on your cute outfit and hit the road for some kind of two hour bike ride. Well, we’re going to go out on a limb and say that’s not the greatest thing ever to do.
After you’ve inspected your bike it’s better to get out and ride it for a few miles.
Hey, you know what would be great? Go out to Madison, spend the weekend in a little Bed and Breakfast with a few friends. You could go out on a few bike rides over the same course. You can shake down your bikes, get yourself in some kind of order, and be ready for the Spring Tune Up in April.
We know just the place. Bring your cute outfit.
