Fixpert

Anyone that owns a bike should learn the most basic routine steps towards maintaining it — cleaning and greasing. If you do these two things every so often, you’ll be amazed at how well your bike runs without any additional maintainence. This is by no means all-inclusive. I’m just going to show you some of the quickest most basic things you can do to keep your bike clean and running smooth. I’m using my Surly Steamroller, a single speed fixed gear bike. This will make the cleaning process a lot simpler, since I don’t have to worry about cleaning cassettes, deraillers, or anything else related to shifting or braking. Note: This article can also be considered an argument for the virtues of owning a fixed gear bike — maintenance is minimal, as I will demonstrate.

Here it is, my Surly. This is my most favorite bike that I have ever owned or ridden. It’s the most fun, dangerous, and versatile bike that I’ve ever come into contact with.

Alright, flip it over.

Shown here: Pedro’s Ice Wax chain lube, Tri-flow, Pedro’s Bio Degreaser, Phil Wood’s Waterproof Grease, and some heavy duty disposable shop towels.

You’ll really only need the degreaser for cleaning, and then the chain lube for lubing your chain, and an old shirt or rag if you don’t have shop towels. The Tri-flow and Phil’s Grease are really for more thorough cleanings.

Spray some degreaser onto a shop towel.

Just wipe everything down, start with your frame, it’s probably got dried mud on it if you’ve been riding it. It’s often easier to clean a bike after the mud has dried, then it just flakes off pretty easily. If you’ve been riding in an area that gets snow, please clean your bike! You might not realize it, but all that salt they lay on the road sticks to your bike and makes your components rust more quickly.

I like to use degreaser to wipe my frame down because it’s common for grease to build up on the frame, I’m not sure why. Maybe the grease has just travelled there from other areas on the bike.

I like to try and keep my spokes healthy and shiny. It’s always a bummer finding an old bike that’s in good shape, but the spokes are dry and brittle. If you get your spokes too clean, sometimes you’ll hear a little squeaking noise coming from them as you ride. Sometimes as you put pressure and weight on your bike, the contact points between the various spokes are rubbing together. You can fix this with a tiny drop of Tri-Flow at those contact points.

Here’s an important step that will make your bike ride smoothly, clean all the crud off the teeth on your chain ring. Use more degreaser to break it up if you need to. Some people use toothbrushes, you probably won’t need to if you’re cleaning your bike often enough though.

Sometimes I grab the teeth on either side and clean it by wiping outward.

Sometimes I sort of “floss” the chain ring’s teeth.

Wow, cleaning a fixed gear takes like 5 minutes! Isn’t that great? Now we just need to put some fresh lube on the chain. Turn your cranks with one hand, and with the other apply the lube. Just hold the lube in one fixed spot, I hold it over the cog in the back, and let it drip steadily onto the chain until you’ve made a full rotation and covered the entire length.

This is an important step, take a clean shop towel and wipe off the excess lube. If you fail to do this, all the extra lube will collect dirt and other gross stuff off the road and your bike will get dirtier and run rougher faster. Just grab the chain with your towel and turn the crank with the other hand. You’ll see that the shop towel has collected some black grease. You can rinse and repeat the last two steps (lubing and wiping) if you want to clean your chain off a bit more. But, it’s perfectly ok if the stuff you wipe off your chain is dark.

There it is! All sparkly!