Best Practice Checks

[VEA]

Afternoon all,

I (along with a few collegues and a few friends) am doing the Action Arrows 100 on sunday for action Medical research.

It is 100 miles around some of the Rothschild estates around Aylesbury.

Anyway, What I am wondering is what sort of checks do you do when doing a long ride like this, there are the obvious ones like tyres and what not, but what process would you go through with your bike and equipment before you set off?


Thanks
ALex

[Raven Flyer]

Replace all bits that fell off on last ride. Put more gaffer tape around the sections of frame that are cracked. Pump up the tyres as hard they will go. Oil the chain.

Job's a good'un.

[anonymous-user]

Unless the bike has been neglected previously. A basic check and chain clean & lube should suffice. 100 miles isn't really that much for a bike, unless Rothschild Estates have the most serious off road you can imagine.

For confidence, check for any play or noises in headset & bottom bracket, tighten and/or regrease if appropriate.

Make sure all your bolts are torqued up;
bars/stem
seat post
shifters
levers
derailers
brakes, especially on brakes, give the pads rims/discs a clean with meths and importantly re-bed in before your start!

Hydraulic lines check they don't need a bleed, align pads

Clean then Oil the chain

check the fr&Rr derailer alignments & stops

Wheels:- check for play in the axles, bearing, cones and freehub, check for true and check spoke ping for tension.

Tires, removes any small bits of flint etc in the tires, check tubes & rim strip, inflate appropriately.

Edited by anonymous-user on Friday 17th September 14:45

[VEA]

I guess I should have mentioned that it will all be on road...

[anonymous-user]

Nothing unless your bike has not seen a spanner for more than a year and/or many miles in all weathers.

Pump up tires to over max psi, oil chain, wipe off excess, off you go.

the previous routine checks should take no more than 30 mins though, unless something is wrong, including cleaning and re-bedding in the brakes

Edited by anonymous-user on Friday 17th September 14:54

[b2hbm]

Check the tyres for deep cuts in the tread, check pressures but that's about it. Bikes are simple machines, anything going wrong has probably made itself known on your last ride or during weekly/monthly cleaning. Catastrophic failures - eg broken spokes, are not predictable so a check-list inspection isn't going to find them.

If it's any assurance, I'm doing about 800 a month at the moment and do very little maintenance other than cleaning the chain/cassette and changing rear tyres when they look worn. I'd set off on a 100mile ride with no bother, I'd probably just pinch the tyres to see if they were hard enough as I got the bike out.

I would make sure I had a couple of spare tubes though, on a 100 mile ride I wouldn't want it spoiled by a puncture in the first few miles and using my only spare.

[john_p]

Sounds an interesting route, I'd do a part of it (not at the same time) - is it downloadable anywhere?

[VEA]

Here you go. There is a 100km route too.

http://www.action.org.uk/route/225909

[P-Jay]

Up to and including riding big stuff on my DH bike, my pre-flight checks are limited to giving it a shake to see if anyting rattles. Hop on and give it a pump, pull the levers and away I go.

The way I see it, stuff rarely dies when it's in the garage on it's own. If I finished the last ride and it was working, it should be next time I ride it.

[Hard-Drive]

Wheel skewers, stem bolt tightness, and a quick "death grip" on the brakes are what I do before every ride, road or MTB. A good look at my road tyres, a quick glance at MTB ones. Check the QRs on my roadie calipers are OK, and a quick check on frame cracks on the MTB (bit gutted as I did find one once, just as I was unloading the bike in Wales. Check before loading car now!)