Simple bicycle maintenance

My French friend Jacques is a consummate sportsman. Even though he's getting close to 70 years of age, he keeps on teaching skiing in the winter, and during the rest of the year, whenever he isn't busy working around his house, he sometimes hikes but rides a lot and logs some 8,000 miles a year on his road bike.

So as we were talking over the phone yesterday, I asked him which kind of cleaner and lube he was using on his bike; he simply answered: “Ordinary motor oil! I don't even degrease and clean the chain; every 500 km, I wipe it clean then apply some fresh motor oil and that's it.”

As for me, I've gone online and visited countless forums to find out what the best degreaser and lubricants were, without even finding a definitive answer among thousands of finicky opinions.

Jacques also told me that he systematically changes his chain at the beginning of a new riding season (8,000 miles). Jacques has spent his career in the ski and the bike industry, so he's quite knowledgeable.

In contrast, after I had bought my new bike at REI and put less than 1,000 miles on it, I was advised to change the chain, because it had build-up “too much play”, the following season, as I was taking advantage of the store “free tune-up” on my bike first anniversary.

This goes a long way in showing the terrible mentality of that establishment and the thousands of possible ways marketers come up to squeeze money out of consumers.