Servicing - How do I know when ?

Tjgoodhew

So i have done a quick search around this and all i can find is info about having a first service after 200 miles.

Since starting cycling in January i am now through 1200 miles. I had the tune up service after 200 miles and i wanted to know when i should think about having another one.

I am slowly learning bike maintenance myself but am not confident yet playing around with gear indexing. The bike has been looked after and chain and mech have been kept clean and i always check things like pads and tyres etc.. Brakes seem fine and i have recently bought a new set of wheels which are only about 400 miles old

However, I was out on a longish ride yesterday and my gear changes didnt seem as smooth - missed changes and occasionaly feeling like it had moved two cogs instead of one. My front derailleur has started rubbing the chain when im sprinting in my top 3 gears. Im guessing these are both good indications it needs a service but is this a normal sort of distance for this to start happening ? My number of miles is increasing every month and im not sure i like the idea of having to take the bike in every 6 months for a service and paying £50-£60 for the pleasure

I just wanted to see what others do in regards to getting bikes serviced and is it really that difficult for me to do myself bearing in mind i have zero experience with bike maintenance or in fact anything mechanical

markhewitt1978

£60 for a bike service? I think you're taking it to the wrong place!

My LBS is not a cheap place by any means but they charge around £15 for a service.

That being said you can do most adjustments on a bike yourself with watching enough youtube videos etc.

aldric

markhewitt1978 wrote:

£60 for a bike service? I think you're taking it to the wrong place!

My LBS is not a cheap place by any means but they charge around £15 for a service.

That being said you can do most adjustments on a bike yourself with watching enough youtube videos etc.

£15 for a service sounds like a bargain.

One of my LBS charges £20 for the gears to be indexed, they also offer 3 different levels of service.. The middle service (£60) seems very expensive if you are doing it every 3 months!

The full service is £92.40 :shock:

INTERMEDIATE SERVICE - £50 + VAT (£60.00) - Recommended every 3 to 6 months (depending on use).

All of the components on your bike are inspected. The brakes and gears are adjusted, the chain is lubricated and the wheel hubs, headset and bottom bracket are adjusted as required. Truing adjustments to the wheels are also included.

All nuts and bolts are tightened to manufacturer's recommended torque and we inflate the tyres to the correct pressure.

Our Intermediate Service will noticeably improve the performance of your bike, and help identify issues before they develop into bigger repairs. It's more cost effective to have this done at regular intervals than to run your bike into the ground before having it serviced. To get the best out of this service, please give your bike a clean before dropping it off as the price does not include thorough cleaning of heavily soiled bikes.

slowbike

1st clean & lubrication - you need to clean and lubricate the main parts of your bike, clean all over especially the chain and then lubricate the chain - this will keep it going for longer
2nd you need to learn how to index gears - you'll get a few hit'n'miss attempts to start with - then slowly you'll get better.
3rd find out what is wearing on your bike - the tyres need periodic checking, although you'll often get indicators of wearing through an increase in punctures - brake pads need changing, but that depends on how much you use them - chains wear and wear down the cassette & rings, but get the chain change right and you'll get a few chains worth out of the cassette and many more out of the rings.

There is obviously a lot more to it than those - but start with those and you'll learn about the rest - ultimately you can still get the LBS to do the trickier bits, but they should be occasional and not the frequent requirement of the rest.

markhewitt1978

aldric wrote:

£15 for a service sounds like a bargain.

I think they seriously undercharge for labour costs, but I'm not going to tell them that

djm501

markhewitt1978 wrote:

aldric wrote:

£15 for a service sounds like a bargain.

I think they seriously undercharge for labour costs, but I'm not going to tell them that

It rather depends upon what they define as a service. My local Evans charges about £90 for their top level 'gold' service and for that they more or less do full stripdown clean and lubrication of everything. You'll surely never get that for £15.

I only did this when I got a ride2work half price voucher for it though. What I did learn though was that you don't necessarily get what you pay for. They replaced the bottom bracket and identified that my headset will soon need replacing but other than that I can now do a better job myself than they did. They replaced all cables but put no ferrules on the outer gear cables at the shifter end meaning that they both crushed inside the shifter and I lost function on a long ride just a week later. They also ripped off all my lovely hand-friendly Specialized Bar Phat tape (complete with gel pads) and replaced it with their own-brand hand-unfriendly thin rubbish.
I will be doing all this myself (save the headset) in the future.

markhewitt1978

djm501 wrote:

It rather depends upon what they define as a service. My local Evans charges about £90 for their top level 'gold' service and for that they more or less do full stripdown clean and lubrication of everything. You'll surely never get that for £15.

No, fair play, it's just a general check over, tightening up where necessary, advising if any parts need replacing etc.

deswahriff

...the chain rub you describe is very common and easily fixed by tweaking the barrel adjuster on the front mech cable..you'll find it within reach on the down tube so you can tweak as you go...
..similiarly, rattling and jumping on the cassette can usually be sorted by a tweak of the adjuster there, so I wouldn't consider these service items.
Otherwise, you should easily get a few thousand miles before a service is required.....though, in addition to tyres and brakes, check your headset and bottom bracket for play, wheels for alignment (sight them against the brakes as you spin the wheel) regularly.
If you ever played with Meccano, you'll find basic bike servicing straightforward, though you may need some specialist tools.
Personally, while I do most of my own, I do get my bike checked over every spring by my LBS - worth it for the peace of mind.

Tjgoodhew

deswahriff wrote:

...the chain rub you describe is very common and easily fixed by tweaking the barrel adjuster on the front mech cable..you'll find it within reach on the down tube so you can tweak as you go...
..similiarly, rattling and jumping on the cassette can usually be sorted by a tweak of the adjuster there, so I wouldn't consider these service items.
Otherwise, you should easily get a few thousand miles before a service is required.....though, in addition to tyres and brakes, check your headset and bottom bracket for play, wheels for alignment (sight them against the brakes as you spin the wheel) regularly.
If you ever played with Meccano, you'll find basic bike servicing straightforward, though you may need some specialist tools.
Personally, while I do most of my own, I do get my bike checked over every spring by my LBS - worth it for the peace of mind.

Iv tightened the barrel adjuster and messed with it but it doesn't seem to make any difference - its pretty much as tight as it will go so im not sure where to go next other than start fiddling around moving the derailleur.

With the cassette unfortunately i wouldnt even know wher to start with that but i am sure YouTube will come to the rescue.

The bottom bracket is something that is starting to creak a bit too when im putting the bike under pressure. I have got a BB30 so from a little research this seems to be a characteristic of it but again i wouldnt know where to start with it.

These are areas i am looking to learn but its just having the time to do it all. I work long hours so when i get free time i tend to want to spend it riding instead of losing my temper trying to work out what im doing.

And with the weather being nice i dont want to waste a minute of it !!!!

djm501

I ran scared of my bottom bracket for a long time but this weekend I finally gave the BB on my hybrid a go. I have a cheapish toolkit from Rosebikes that has all the necessary tools (it's a square taper BB so I needed a crank puller tool and then a large multitoothed BB extractor tool - other tools will be required if you have an Octalink number or something) and it turned out to be a total piece of cake. Just undoing a few nuts basically. Really, there's nothing to it and Youtube is your friend for this sort of thing. Also get a good manual - something like Zinn and the Art of Bike maintenance of the Park Tools blue book are great.

dnwhite88

I would steer clear of anywhere live Evans for a service, a LBS will almost always be cheaper and you will get a far better service

djm501

Yeah well they get all my business for a few reasons
1. They're about 2 minutes walk away from where I work - others here are much further away and by far the most convenient opening hours .Seriously 9.30 am - 5 pm on weekdays elsewhere - useless when they're 40 minutes walk away, Evans are open 8 am to 8 pm.
2. Their servicing in my branch at least has been superior in my experience to the others. You can get equally bad service anywhere in my experience.
3. It's where I bought my roadbike on a ride2work scheme so I do get discount vouchers like they're going out of fashion.
I think they were rushing the last job to be honest as there were lots of grumpy comments from their chief mechanic about the state of the components on my bike - I ride it a *lot* so it wears quickly and they clearly weren't expecting it to take so long. That's why I take it for service - for an expert eye to check on wear. :roll: (Still I've grown enough in confidence to not have to do that now finally).
I do appreciate that they have a mixed reputation though. I find my local branch pretty good to be honest - they've just tarnished themselves a bit on their last effort.

Pross

dnwhite88 wrote:

I would steer clear of anywhere live Evans for a service, a LBS will almost always be cheaper and you will get a far better service

Bit of a generalisation. There are some totally sh*te LBS out there and I suspect some very good Evans stores.

Learning to do things yourself is definitely the way to go though, I'm not the best at anything mechanical but I will do anything on a bike that doesn't involve expensive tools or stripping down a component. Most things on a bike are pretty basic to fix.

dnwhite88

You're right they're a big chain and it's unfair to tar them all with the same brush based on the service I've had in a couple and I'm sure there are some awful LBS out there

nochekmate

DIY

Basics which most LBS offer as part of their package are fairly straightforward and cost of doing it yourself is minimal (and it's quite enjoyable!)

keef66

I'd say after 1200 miles you need to get a chain wear checker and start monitoring your chain. If you leave it till it's exceeded 1% wear you'll likely need a new cassette as well.

Other than that, learn to index your gears to take up any cable stretch / eliminate rubbing.

CiB

Save up a few Chinese takeaway pots then pick a wet Saturday morning to strip your bike down to its individual components, putting them all in the takeaway pots. Clean everything thoroughly then put it all back together again. By the time you've done it twice you'll know absolutely everything about your bike, servicing becomes a complete doddle and it'll look like new. I do it 2 - 3 times a year now, takes a couple of hours, best done with TMS on the wireless.

smbm

CiB wrote:

best done with TMS on the wireless.

This

bails87

v tightened the barrel adjuster and messed with it but it doesn't seem to make any difference - its pretty much as tight as it will go so im not sure where to go next other than start fiddling around moving the derailleur.

Just turning things that you don't understand is unlikely to help.

Have a look here: http://www.parktool.com/repair/

It really is all pretty simple, there's no need to pay for a service.