modern mountain bicycles are more complex machines than most people realise. they are designed to take a lot of abuse and let average riders (like myself) plough through trails that we wouldn’t even have looked at only a few years ago at insane speeds. we notice the toll that takes when things go wrong out there, but it’s harder to understand the continuous impact that sort of riding has on the bikes.

some wear is visible, like the tires, chains, chainrings, cassettes or brake pads. in other cases wear isn’t necessarily visible until things break. this is where maintenance comes in: it’s cheap insurance, a little time & money spent every now and then rather than a significant outlay when expensive components wear out and need to be replaced.

there are bearings to check, grease, tighten and occasionally replace, cables that stretch over time, seals that need replacing, suspension fluids that need to be renewed. manufacturers specify these service intervals in hours of riding time but that can be hard to track. who would write down all the rides and then compare that to the service records?

thankfully there is a better way. i record all my rides on strava anyway and my new favourite app, pro bike garage, then pulls that data to aggregate the moving time since the last service. the app comes with preset service intervals for many components but also lets you set your own if you like (or if preset intervals don’t exist). then you get alerts when it’s time to do a little maintenance again.

i like it.