Seasonal Bike Maintenance

A bike that has been standing since November is not the bike you put away. Lubricant has drained out of the chain and dried where it settled, tires have lost pressure through the tube and taken a set, and anything that went into storage damp has spent three months quietly corroding.

Summer is the easy season to ride in and a surprisingly hard one on equipment. Heat raises tire pressure on its own, dust turns lubricant into an abrasive within a couple of rides, and parked bikes bake.

Fall is when the conditions change faster than habits do. The commute that was comfortable in September is dark on both ends by late October, the roads are wet more often than they are dry, and there is a layer of leaves in every corner and over every drain.

Winter splits into two decisions and they need different maintenance. If you ride through it, the bike is going to spend months covered in a salt or brine solution that attacks every steel and aluminum surface it can reach, and the schedule tightens to something close to weekly.