Who checks their bike before a ride?

[Philip Benstead]

Check tyres, chain and brakes every day.

Recently I have noticed many people riding ebikes with soft tyres, particularly on the rear.

Based upon most people I come across, they don't have a pump.

[Dingdong]

I generally give the bike the old '3 bounce' test to see if there anything amiss. But realistically, that only gives an indication of whether any bolts or bearings are loose, it can't peer into frame tubes, or detect flaws in Carbon fibre or cracks in aluminium or Titanium. I've steered clear of almost anything Titanium (apart from the silly skewers) all these years, and watched with dismay club mates and cycling acquaintances mournfully relate they trouble with Titanium frames, saddles and seat posts which fail.

AFAIK, this is mostly down to the difficulty in clean welding Titanium in proper conditions. I watched a guy repair a Bianchi Titanium frame once and he pointed out the colour of all the joints in the frame, anything that deviated from a light straw yellow in colour was 'poor work' and had potential to fail.

I've not had a frame fail on me yet, but I've come very close with a pair of Carbon forks, where the glue holding one of the blades into the fork crown was just about gone. It was only fixing a puncture I noticed it, and binned them immediately for a new pair.

[Cugel]

Yesterday's ride through the lost lanes of west mid-Wales saw a wrong turn down a junction leading not to the other road we hoped for but to a cattle wallow surrounded by a lake 4 inches deep in liquid cowmuck under a thin crust. Alas, mistaking the thin crust for a road surface, in I plunged at a fair speed.

Naturally, the cowmuck dragged the wheels to a stop, requiring me to put one foot down; then the other to get off and walk back out of the wallow! Cow$h!te everywhere - transmission, disc brakes and up & over me nice shoes.

One hundred yards (or maybe metres) up the road was the proper junction, with only another 25K to home. Happily, the transmission and disc brakes continued to work as normal, apart from some front brake squeal. At home, evening mirk descending, I spent a good half hour hosing, brushing and otherwise cleaning orf the cowmuck. This was a fine opportunity to check, oh, all sorts of nuts and bolts. They were all properly tight, so they were.

Today it'll be brake pads out and isopropyl alcohol well applied to get rid of cowmuck oil. The chain came clean with water followed by a good application of GT85. Relubing this afternoon.

The moral of this story is: ride through deep cowmuck to prompt your bike checks! (And a good clean).

Cugel, carefully checking between my toes.

[Cowsham]

Check tyres, chain and brakes every day.

Recently I have noticed many people riding ebikes with soft tyres, particularly on the rear.

Based upon most people I come across, they don't have a pump.

Based upon most ebike riders I come across the rear tyre is under extreme stress.

[Philip Benstead]

Check tyres, chain and brakes every day.

Recently I have noticed many people riding ebikes with soft tyres, particularly on the rear.

Based upon most people I come across, they don't have a pump.

Based upon most ebike riders I come across the rear tyre is under extreme stress.

Do you mean the rider is fat?

[Cowsham]

Based upon most people I come across, they don't have a pump.

Based upon most ebike riders I come across the rear tyre is under extreme stress.

Do you mean the rider is fat?

No maybe just pregnant.

[ANTONISH]

Last year I used to be regularly passed by a couple on e-bikes - they often sailed past as I grovelled up a hill.
One day they were stopped at the side of the road with what appeared to be a puncture.
Usually I will stop to offer assistance but taking over what appeared to be a wresting match with the rear wheel deterred me.
Haven't seen them recently.

[ANTONISH]

Check tyres, chain and brakes every day.

Recently I have noticed many people riding ebikes with soft tyres, particularly on the rear.

Based upon most people I come across, they don't have a pump.

IME some people may have a pump but not know how to use it - times change - what was once everyday knowledge has become an arcane art.

[simonineaston]

I'm reminded of a quip - or possibly said in all seriousness - from the excellent Ry Cooder when asked the usual tedious question on the subject of strings and wotnot. "Yes I change them regular - 'bout once every two years..."

[pwa]

Check tyres, chain and brakes every day.

Recently I have noticed many people riding ebikes with soft tyres, particularly on the rear.

Based upon most people I come across, they don't have a pump.

IME some people may have a pump but not know how to use it - times change - what was once everyday knowledge has become an arcane art.

Even when I was a child in the 1960s/70s there were people cycling on under-inflated tyres, with a rusty chain and with one brake not working, and no pump on the bike. There is nothing new in that.

[Philip Benstead]

Based upon most people I come across, they don't have a pump.

IME some people may have a pump but not know how to use it - times change - what was once everyday knowledge has become an arcane art.

Even when I was a child in the 1960s/70s there were people cycling on under-inflated tyres, with a rusty chain and with one brake not working, and no pump on the bike. There is nothing new in that.

Why some people so usless in regard to simple bike
maintainance it not brain surgery.

I notice on this forum some questions that are asked by what appered
To be mature and educated people are so basic that I am surprised.

[peetee]

Every time I hop on a bike I’m grabbing a fist full of brake lever to check they feel good, off and on with the brakes to check for clunks at the front end and then a couple of pedal strokes out of the saddle in a higher that ideal gear puts a bit of strain through the back end of the frame and the transmission. So within a few yards I’ve checked most that can go wrong. I also am a stickler for quiet bikes. Every creak is a problem so it’s investigated ASAP.

[Dingdong]

I've come a cropper three times on account of bike/materials failure in my life. Mercifully none of them have caused me much physical damage, but the bikes in each case have written off. In entirety.

There are only a few things that you absolutely can't mitigate against while cycling: other poor road users, personal errors or intoxication, and catastrophic mechanical failure. It's the latter that worries me most.

[pwa]

I've come a cropper three times on account of bike/materials failure in my life. Mercifully none of them have caused me much physical damage, but the bikes in each case have written off. In entirety.

There are only a few things that you absolutely can't mitigate against while cycling: other poor road users, personal errors or intoxication, and catastrophic mechanical failure. It's the latter that worries me most.

The more robust your bike, the less you have to worry about. My current ready-to-go bike is a titanium framed tourer with strong cro-mo forks and 36 spoke wheels with middle weight rims, so serious crash-inducing materials failure is unlikely. I could still crack a saddle rail, of course, or a handlebar. That's one to watch, certainly. I've had a couple of ally seatpins go, but they both went with a kind of sag that gave me time to process what was going on and stand up.

[Dingdong]

I've come a cropper three times on account of bike/materials failure in my life. Mercifully none of them have caused me much physical damage, but the bikes in each case have written off. In entirety.

There are only a few things that you absolutely can't mitigate against while cycling: other poor road users, personal errors or intoxication, and catastrophic mechanical failure. It's the latter that worries me most.

The more robust your bike, the less you have to worry about. My current ready-to-go bike is a titanium framed tourer with strong cro-mo forks and 36 spoke wheels with middle weight rims, so serious crash-inducing materials failure is unlikely. I could still crack a saddle rail, of course, or a handlebar. That's one to watch, certainly. I've had a couple of ally seatpins go, but they both went with a kind of sag that gave me time to process what was going on and stand up.

I must admit I wouldn't touch a titanium frame with a barge pole. Our lbs has a walk in cupboard filled with broken and unrepairable frames. I regularly have a look in to see if there are any headsets or parts I can scavenge. About a third of them are aluminium, there are a few Carbon frames and forks, but the rest are Ti. Including a lovely, and very expensive Bianchi which has a visible crack right around the downtube where it meets the head tube. Luckily it was still warrantied. There are only two steel frames, both of which are bottom bracket fails.

Welding Titanium is extraordinary difficult, and with seemingly a new Chinese Ti frames coming out every week, joint falls are only set to increase. eBay appears to be flooded with Titanium these days. Fortunately they rarely seem to fail catastrophically, but it's a very expensive hobby/fetish imo.