12 Common Bike Maintenance Mistakes And How To Avoid Them

Whilst maintaining your mountain bike is actually fairly straightforward, it can be really easy to get a few things wrong, especially if you rush something, if you don't quite know what you're doing, or if you just take a chance on something and don't do your research. So here are some classic mountain bike workshop mistakes and what you need to do to avoid them. Working in inappropriate footwear. Yeah, okay, we've all done this and really it doesn't need spelling out to show you just how bad this can be. If you're in a workshop and you're in bare feet, flip flops, even just in your socks, you're asking for trouble really. Bikes have heavy components on them, they've got heavy tools that you start using, things like hammers. All it's going to take is to accidentally slip and you're going to be in a realm of pain. Fettling with your bike naturally means that from time to time, you're going to drop a few things. That could be the Allen key set you're working with, it could be a few annoying washers, or it could be something heavy like a hammer. And I can tell you first hand, dropping a hammer on the top of your foot is one of the most painful things you'll ever do. It's right up there with treading barefooted on Lego, or even worse, on a plug on the middle of the night when you're on your way to the loo. I can tell you, it is exactly 13 times more painful than falling off your bike. But on a more serious note, you are working with bikes, you're working with tools that are sharp things floating around in a workshop, so do take care. White t-shirts and light clothing. Bikes are dirty. Drivetrains, they're even more dirty. Now, despite what those 50 to 1 boys are doing and what all the cool kids are doing, white t-shirts are a terrible idea for mountain bikers, especially in the workshop. Doddy, you're so dirty, look at you. You state. Now, wearing dark clothes obviously is a much better idea. When you do get dirty, at least you can't see it and it means it's easier to wash out. But a better idea is actually just to get yourself a workshop apron. Make a lot of sense. You can stick your tools in them. Job done. Give me that. Blunt cable cutters. Now, this is a classic workshop error. I see this a lot with people that skimp on cable cutters. They get themselves a nice value set that never really cut through the cable. And I see these people like hacking at cables trying to get through. But what you need is a quality set of cable cutters. These will cut through your cable precisely every single time. You won't get any of those frayed cables which cut the ends of your fingers, which is excruciatingly painful. One note though, get yourself a pair of cable cutters. Buy ones, do it right, and they will last you. But make sure you do not use them for anything except cutting through cables. Now, I've got a really, really old set. You can see how old and faded they are by comparison to these brand new workshop spec ones. These ones are now retired from use as cable cutters, and I use these as generic cutters for cutting cable ties, cutting through spokes, anything like that. And I've marked them up with some silver tape so I know that these are no good for using on the bike. I definitely recommend doing the same if you've got a knackered pair because you can still get use out of them. Just don't go hacking at your cables. Get yourself a nice, fresh, sharp pair and only use them for that. Rounding off bolt heads. Now, possibly one of the quickest ways to round off a bolt head is getting imperial and metric Allen keys confused. Now, thankfully, in the mountain bike world and the same in the road world, you don't really see a mix of imperial and metric these days. Really, you do see some of that in the BMX world, and of course, you'll see it from other sports. So if you've got a toolkit that has varying Allen keys in there, make sure you keep them separate because it can be really easy to find one that looks like a five or looks like a four, jam it in the bolt, and round the head off. That is not good. Just need to sort this jockey wheel bolt. Three mil. Thank you. There we go. Oh, shi- Mono and SRAM rear derailleurs both have tiny little countersunk bolts that hold the jockey wheels in place. Now, these are super easy to round off, so make sure that A, the bolt is in vaguely good condition before you even start using it. B, make sure that your Allen key is in fine condition. It's got nice, sharp, chiseled edges on it. Don't go using an old one that's slightly rounded. You're asking for trouble, and it's gonna be a big pain in the ass. And ultimately, this is why we tell people to buy quality tools because they last a lot longer. Remember the motto? Only a rich man buys cheap tools. Slipping sockets. Now, the top cap on most suspension forks, you will need to access this in order to put air volume spacers in. Now, you'll think a normal socket is the ideal thing for this, but most typical sockets you'll get in toolkits will have slightly chamfered edges like this one here. That's to aid them to get them to slide onto a bolt head nicely. But in the case of a real shallow-headed bolt head, like you see on the top of a suspension fork, this is a really, really bad idea. They're made of soft aluminum, and it does mean that you'll actually round those edges off really fast, so don't use one that's got edges like this. What you really want to be doing is either get yourself one that's already got a flat surface to it, get an old socket and grind it down, or get yourself a purpose-built one like this one, for example, from Fox, designed for the fork, and you can get purpose-made spanners exactly for the job. And if something like this is the sort of tool that you're not going to use that often, chip in with your mates and get a set between you of those less commonly used tools. Well worth it. Using the wrong tool for the job. Now, I think we all know where I stand on this. I think that you should have the correct tools for any job. It doesn't always happen like that, and it does mean that a lot of the time you see people bodging. Yeah, you. I've seen you doing it. I've done it from time to time, and I've got to say it is quite useful to be able to bodge here and now. What I'm talking about is if you do find yourself in a situation where you round off the head of a bolt, say it's a four millimeter one on the front of a stem, you can actually sometimes get a T25 Torx key into that. It will find some traction, so sometimes it can be useful to sort of get you out of danger. And likewise, if you're at the side of the trail and say the eight mil bolt on your crank has come loose, you can wedge a six and a two in there, and it will just about nip it up tight enough, certainly to hopefully get you to the next spot or until you find another rider that will have an eight millimeter. And well, we've all done it. We've all fitted a headset with a block of wood and a mallet, but that's for another video on GMBN Tech soon. Just keep an eye out for that one. Being ham-fisted. Now, we've all seen this one. There's no excuse for it. Being ham-fisted around a bike isn't going to get you anywhere, and if anything, it's just going to cost you money. Now, working on bikes isn't hard. As long as you follow a procedure, it's pretty logical, to be honest. So just take your time. If there's a job that's frustrating you, walk away from it. Get a bit of fresh air. Never work on a bike when you're in a bit of a mood, your stress level's pretty high. It's never going to work out that well. All you're going to end up doing is snapping a bolt, rounding a bolt off, or doing something you're really going to regret, especially in the wallet department. Misplacing tools. The main answer to misplaced tools are lending them out. Do not ever lend your tools to anyone because you won't see them again. Now, every tool needs to have a home. Now, you don't have to have a workshop quite as well organized as this place, or even as retentive as my own workshop, which is pretty retentive, to be fair. But it is important that you do have somewhere to store your tools. You do that and you're going to be able to avoid the rare phenomenon known as workshop rage. Now, this happens when you're working on your bike, you're just about to go out riding, and there's one crucial tool missing that you need. It's always something like a five millimeter Allen key, the most common thing there is. Where is it? Yeah, you lent it to a mate, didn't you? Cool, and the last thing I need is just a mallet. Seriously, it's got one place. I bet those guys next door to GCN, I bet they've got it. Oh, there it is. Why is flicking roadies even needed for anyway? We can't even pick the thing up. Misplacing small parts. Now, we've all done this before when we've been working on bikes, we've dropped stuff, it's flown under the fridge or wherever it's gone. It can be so annoying, and it can be right in front of your eyes half the time, and you waste time trying to find this stuff. Now, it will always happen, over the night before when you're preparing to go for a ride, you need to get an early night's sleep in order to get up and ride all day, or just before you go riding, in which case you're wasting valuable riding time. Now, having some sort of magnetic parts tray, that's a great idea, because you can just, for example, lock on grip bolts, stuff like that. You can pop them straight in there. They're going to stick in there, not going to go anywhere. You're not going to lose them. You can even drop these things, and they're so magnetic that the stuff doesn't really fall out. Now, if you're working with a few more parts, it's worth having a rubber mat on top of your workbench. They have little compartments on the top of them, and they're really, really good for just making sure your parts don't go missing, forgetting the order in which you need to reassemble parts of your bike. Now, this is an absolute classic, and it does directly go on from losing parts and misplacing parts. Whenever you're working on parts of your bike that have multiple components and parts to them, always lay them out on your workbench. It's a good idea to put them on a rubber mat or some shop towel so they can't roll off and go anywhere, and put them in a reverse order so you know when you have to put it back together again, the order in which they go back on the bike, and also, you can't have any parts left over afterwards. Now, I've seen some people try and reassemble headsets and forks and all sorts of stuff in the past, where they've just chucked the stuff down on a work surface, and they're always left for something afterwards. You never want to be in that position because it might go together okay, but you'll be left with something that's actually quite crucial to the way that your bike works. Over-tightening spokes. Now, this is another classic. So, you've got the loose spokes where your back wheel is a little bit buckled from that downhill run you've just done. You start attacking it with the spoke key. Now, the idea is if you do have a loose spoke, you just want to nip it up tight and then start working on it quarter turns maximum, half turns at a time. If you just start cranking away on it until it gets tight, A, you're going to ruin your wheel. That's a good way to make your wheel egg-shaped instead of round. And of course, if they're that tight and you're struggling to tighten them, stop. You need to relieve some of that pressure elsewhere on the wheel. If you just keep tightening, you're going to round off that nipple and then the only way to get out is by cutting spokes out. And of course, if you're not thinking straight, you're going to use your nice posh cable cutters to do that, which is why I always tell you to never over-tighten spokes and always keep a set of old cable cutters handy in case you do over-tighten your spokes and you need to cut one. Over-spraying lubricant. Now, this is something a lot of people are guilty of. When you're lubing your chain, you need to be really careful not to get any lubricant near your braking surfaces. If you do, you're almost certainly going to need to replace the brake pads and more than likely the disc rotors as well, which can obviously work out to be quite pricey and a massive pain. Now, spray lube is really quite cost effective and it's good for using on multiple areas of the bike, but we try to recommend people to avoid using it around the chain because of the fact the mist can go all over your disc rotors so really try and avoid that if you can. The best solution for just using it on your chain is a dedicated chain oil dropper. So you can literally drop it drop by drop onto each link. It's very much more cost effective because you're not wasting any by spraying anywhere and of course, it's not going to go near your braking surfaces. So there we go, some classic workshop mistakes for everyone to avoid, including myself, guilty of these time to time. For some more mistakes that you do when you're traveling on your bike, click down there and for something a bit more useful, check out the brand new Canyon Strive up here. As always, if you love what we do here at GMBN Tech, give us a huge thumbs up and don't forget to share and subscribe.