Getting the bike ready for the season is essential to literarily having a smooth season start. The amount of work the bike needs depends on the bike’s condition before it is put away for the winter. A bike that was put away dirty and wet with or with worn out parts will need some extra love compared to a well maintained clean bike.
Getting the bike ready for the season is essential to literally having a smooth season start. The amount of work the bike needs depends on the bike’s condition before it is put away for the winter. A bike that was put away dirty and wet with or with worn-out parts will need some extra love compared to a well-maintained clean bike
My name is Thomas Klingenberg, I have been a biking ambassador for Norrøna since 2017 and I have been riding and racing mountain bikes for most of my life. I have mainly been racing downhill and enduro, however, the core of biking for me is to enjoy it. Because of the seriousness that racing brought, I normally didn’t put my bike away for the winter. I would instead put spiked tires on it and use it as often as I could. The bike was only put away during injuries, which sadly were quite often. Washing the bike with a broken arm is not so cool, so during injuries the bike was often stored dirty.
Because of countless injuries and the discovery of other fun activities like surfing, wing foiling, kiting, and skiing (I am currently on the way to Japan to hopefully ski the best snow in my life) the bike is now not as frequently used during the winter.
I am not exactly a consistent caretaker of my bike. I usually use it until parts become in such a condition that it affects the amount of joy the bike brings. When this happens I also know how to fix it as I have seen most problems before and I have a master’s degree in mechanical engineering.
Let’s get down to business.
Generally, it is all the movable parts that are exposed to wear on a bike. On a full suspension bike, this includes the bearings for frame suspension, bottom bracket, head tube, and wheels. If the bearing rolls around smoothly without making noise, small vibrations, or having any play, the bearing is in good condition. You can check the wheel and bottom bracket bearings by spinning the wheels around and trying to wiggle them side to side. The head tube bearings can be checked by turning the handlebars from side to side, and locking the front wheel, and pushing the handlebars forward and backward to check for play in the head tube. If you find play here, try to tighten the headset by loosening the stem (back bolts) tightening the top bolt, and then tightening the back bolts again.
The frame suspension bearings can be a bit more difficult to check. The quickest way to check them is to grab your seat or seat tube, and wiggle it up and down. This checks for play in all the frame bearings. If you find any play, check every bearing individually by doing the same movement on the bike, while putting your fingers over every connection point. This will let you feel where the problem is. If you find a point with play, try to tighten the bolt to see if this fixes the problem. Be aware that this might only halfway fix the problem as the loose bolt might be caused by a bad bearing, and if this is the case, the problem will come back fairly quickly.
Wiggling your seat will only catch a bearing problem late. The frame bearings can also be checked by disassembling the suspension linkages and feeling the bearing with a finger. This is also a great opportunity to clean and add some new grease to the bearings to increase the bike's smoothness and bearing lifetime. If you find a bad bearing, replace it with a new one. This usually involves a hammer, a socket of the right size, and if the bearing is really bad, some patience with a dash of creativity.
Servicing the suspension can also make miracles on how smooth the bike feels. Suspension should generally be serviced after every 100 hours of use and if the suspension does not feel as smooth as it used to, it is probably time for a service. There are two types of suspension service: the easy one, meaning a basic service, and the advanced one, meaning a full service, which often requires special tools only reserved for special shops. I only do the basic service on the suspension fork as rear shocks also can be tricky. If it is time for a full rear shock and fork service, talk to your local bike shop.
The basic fork service on the other hand is surprisingly easy as what you are really doing is just cleaning the inside and adding new oil to the lower legs of the fork. To do this, you should remove the front wheel and brake caliper to avoid spilling oil on your brake pads and give you enough room to separate the lower legs from the fork. It can also make it easier to remove the fork from the bike by taking off the stem. All you have to do then is to remove the bolts on the bottom of the fork, one is often covered by a dial for the rebound adjustment which you should.
It is often required that you loosen the bolts a few rounds and then give them a light tap with a rubber hammer or something similar to loosen the connection between the outer and inner stanchions. When you take off the bolts, the fork should come apart easily. Let the oil out in a bucket or similar clean the inside of the fork with some paper towels and some suspension cleaner if you have. It is also nice to give the spongy rings almost on top of the lower stanchions a good clean and some new oil if you don’t have new ones. Then start assembling the fork by sliding the lower stanchions almost all the way onto the upper stanchions and filling the right amount of the right oil through the bolt holes at the bottom of the fork. The type and amount of oil is specified in the service manual for your specific fork brand and model. Then assemble the rest of the fork and put it back on your bike. There can be some variety to how this is done depending on the fork you have.
The drivetrain can have a hard time over the winter. Especially if it is left without oil in a humid garage or if worse, used on salty roads. If the drivetrain is dirty, the use of some sort of degreaser, kitchen soap, or even diesel can work well to clean things up. If the drivetrain is rusty, penetrating oils like WD40 can make wonders, especially if you let it work for a bit. You can even use multiple rounds of WD40, cleaning the drivetrain between each round. Avoid getting the oil on your disks or brake pads as this will leave you with more work. Finish off the drivetrain with some chain oil.
If the drivetrain does still not work properly, there can be several causes for this:
- You might have left something leaning towards your rear derailleur leaving either the derailleur or the derailleur hanger bent. Solution: try bending the derailleur hanger or derailleur back. If you are unable to do this, you should buy a new one.
- Your rear axle is loose. Solution: tighten the rear axle.
- Your cassette or boss (the thing the cassette is mounted to is loose) is loose. Solution: Tighten the cassette with a cassette tool. Tighten the boss to the axle. This is usually done by holding one side of the rear wheel axle while tightening the other side. You might have to remove some spacing cups to get to where you tighten.
- Your gears aren’t properly adjusted. Solution: Adjust the gears by changing the cable length and/ or adjust the stopping screws. If you are unsure of how to do this, look it up on YouTube.
The brakes are usually well functioning after a winter. The most commonly problem is that you get oil on your brake pads or disks. If your brakes have bad stopping power, this is usually the problem. This is pretty normal for some older-generation Shimano brakes after they are left untouched for a while. To fix this; remove your brake pads and disks and give them a good clean with disk brake cleaner and/ or Zalo and water (or another powerful kitchen soap). I prefer Zalo. If you want to reuse your pads, you should clean them extra well as the oil often can penetrate into them. To reuse the pads I therefore usually heat them up/ burn them with a blow torch after cleaning them and then wiping off the ashes. This usually gets the oil away. It might be easier to just replace the pads, which you might have to do anyway if they are worn.
If the disks are dragging on the pads, you might want to adjust the position of the caliper. If this does not work, you might have to bend the disk straight. Use the caliper as a reference to where the disk is bent. Another reason for dragging disks is if the pads aren’t retracting properly. If this is the case you can give the caliper pistons some grease. If you do this, be careful to not push the pistons too far out as they might fall off leaving you with a mess and a brake bleeding job. If the brake works inconsistently, meaning that the point where the brake handle activates the brake varies, and/ or the brake handle feels squishy there are usually air bubbles in the hydraulic system.
Your brakes then need a brake bleed. This is relatively easy to do but requires a bleeding kit and either DOT or mineral oil depending on your brake brand.
If your tires are worn out from last season, it might be an idea to change them for new ones. The tire rubber also gets harder over time which means that it delivers less grip. If you see cracks in the rubber, this is a clear sign that the bike will benefit from new tires, even if they are not fully worn out yet. New grips can also make the bike look and feel fresh.
I hope this helps your bike feel smooth going into the next season.
See you on the trails!