On yet another rainy evening during my summer in Boston I tossed my bike onto my trainer to get in my Tuesday night ride. My pedals were cranking, chain was moving, but rear wheel was spinning at the pace of a 99 year old woman, walking up Mont Ventoux. I was hit with the dreaded frozen wheel and after trying to figure out how to fix it from park tools website I cut my losses and brought it to the shop.
I do alot of my own maintenance on my bike, but don’t yet have the knowledge to do a full overhaul (just built my first commuter and learned alot but am nowhere close to buidling a race ready bike.) I’ve frequently ridden in some awful conditions on my bike and am a bit heavier (190) than your typical rider and all in all put 8,000 to 10,000 miles on the bike in 2 years.
Turned out not only was my free hub done, I also needed a new cassette, new bottom bracket and new chain. All which were pretty much expected with the grinding I put my bike through. So my question is this, had I brought my bike into a shop for preventative maintenance would my bike have needed less work? In other words, can having a little maintenance knowledge allow parts that otherwise would need to be replaced function, but ultimatley damage other parts worse?
Cassettes just wear out if you put miles on them. They are expendable (105’s seem to last forever, though).
Chains just wear out if you put miles on them. They are expendable.
Wheel bearing can be regreased very easily with a couple of simple tools.
Free Wheels can be cleaned and lubed with a few more tools and the willingness to make a mess. Velonews has a good video of relubing an entire rear wheel.
Work on the bottom bracket depends on what you have and what you are comfortable doing. For me Shimano stuff is easy enough after you do it once.
If you know you are going to ride in the rain a lot (I do too, plus snow and ice), the liberal use of grease where water/salt can get into any of the systems will go a long way.
chains and cassettes wear out, no big deal.
Your freehub should be lubed every 6 months, 3000 miles or such. It will wear out eventually, but if properly maintained, should last many years.
BB’s used to last forever. I’ve pulled apart 20 year old bikes with spindle style axles and they’re still in good shape. Apparently this annoyed the component mfgs, so they invented external cup BB’s where the bearings wear out in a year or so, sometimes even less.
Having your shop press in a set of Enduro steel cartridge style replacement bearings will help with BB wear. They spin pretty freely and are reasonably well sealed.