If you want to ride Lands End to John O’Groats you need to know the rudiments of looking after your bike. Sure, if you have your bike serviced at your local bike shop just before the ride it might get you through the 1000 (ish) miles of the ride without incident but then again, it might not. And anyway, before the ride itself there will be all those training rides and you don’t want to be in and out of the bike shop the whole time. So, listen up…
You need to know what to regularly check on your bike and it will save you a lot of time and money if you can deal with the simpler fixes yourself. You should also get into the habit of carrying a basic tool kit to fix problems on the road so that you can keep moving.
To keep things simple I have divided maintenance up into the working components that you are most likely to need to deal with:
