It is such a good feeling when one makes some adjustments and something becomes like new again while saving your money.

You will probably be looking at that bike with a lot of pride whenever you see it from now on.

I really need to clean up by gears and chain as well. They are all grimy. I plan to do with my my tongue and to oil my chain with natural human oil derived from my face and hair … just kidding. I will probably just clean it with a mild degreaser and a rag and use some type of lubricant. I have never done it before so it should be an adventure or really boring.

Jacob Can you tell me what kind of bike you own/price range? I am shoppng for a bike which I hope to use for errands and at least 3 days/ week to work. I’m 45 female and in fair/good physical condition The dealers i spoke to all recommend different brands. They were not helpful. thanks JL

Citrus is the stuff for cleaning your drivetrain.

To reiterate, if you put a front mudflap that hangs to within 2 inches of the ground on your bike, you won’t need to clean your drivetrain much more than once a year. Plus it keeps your feet a lot drier.

On the chain lube front, I don’t bother with buying bike chain lube at $5 for 2 oz or around $150 a gallon or whatever.

I use whatever oil happens to be around when I fill my metal oilcan. Which was hydraulic jack oilthe last time. Normal clean (unused) car engine oil works good, too.

Both work perfectly fine for the purpose of a basic road bike.

Why does the rear tire wear faster?

I only just now saw your previous bike-commuting entry, and I liked both it and this one; they sort of sound like the happy and excited rants that I’ve made my wife quite tired of 😉 My new bike had mountain bike tires, and I considered slicing of the nubs but eventually just bought some new road/country tires, and the bike now flies [even faster than before]. I reckoned that I’d need tires at some point anyway, and I can always use my mountain bike tires then. I was taken a bit aback by the price of the new tires: even on bargain, they cost 2x40US = 80US but were said to last long. When asked “How long?”, it was the bike seller’s turn to be taken aback. He guessed a couple of thousand kms, not too impressive; I hope they last longer. I save about 9USD each commute (33miles) in petrol/train tickets, but at 2000km = 1242miles, that is about 40c of tire per trip, not much, but comparable to the food-fuel (eg., rice: 66c) that I burn.

@bigato – Many replace both tires at the same time, so given your 1:3 wear schedule, they’d buy two tires per year if they didn’t rotate. If they did rotate, they’d only buy 1+1/3=4/3 tires per year. If you just replace each tire as it wears out, you wouldn’t gain an advantage.

From a safety point of view this is not an optimal strategy … better to throw away the worn rear tire, move the relatively fresh front tire to the back, and get a new tire for the front. This way if you have a blowout it will occur on the rear tire, which is much safer than a front blowout.

No no no no.
Do *not* rotate your rear tyre to your front. The front of a bike needs more grip than the rear. It’s perfectly fine for the average commuter to transfer the front to the rear when the rear runs out, but it other way around can be dangerous.

Also anyone who replaced both tyres at once is unlikely to be reading this blog. However even the other cyclists I know who have more money than sense don’t replace both tyres at once, it’s just too much hassle.

I have to second the motion to not rotate bicycle tires, it is very dangerous. If your rear tire is getting too worn replace it. Trust me you don’t want a front tire blowout on a bicycle.

I’m all about saving a few bucks but bicycle mechanic guru Sheldon Brown also warns against it also: http://sheldonbrown.com/tire-rotation.html

Furthermore, note that even if the front tire has a fair amount of tread left, if it has thousands of miles on it, it can be prone to sidewall failure. Occasionally inspect the tires. There shouldn’t be any bulging anywhere.