Seasonal Bike Service at Home: the 15-Point Checklist for Spring and Autumn

A home seasonal service is 15 checks: chain wear, sprockets, chainrings, gear cables; pad thickness, rotors, hydraulic bleed; headset, bottom bracket, hubs; tyre wear, pressure, wheel true; torque and lubrication. L'Atelier puts it at 30 to 45 minutes, twice a year, enough to prevent 90% of breakdowns. Do it once before the riding season and once before winter, and use the limits below to decide what gets replaced.

The point is to catch slow wear before it spreads: a chain never measured that ends up destroying the cassette, forgotten pads that score the rotor, a headset with play that damages its bearings. L'Atelier's maintenance schedule describes a routine of a few minutes a week that avoids far more expensive repairs. The thresholds here come from L'Atelier's guides (la-telier.com); your component manufacturer's figure always takes priority.

The 15 checks and their limits

Drivetrain: measure, don't guess

Chain wear is expressed as elongation. A new chain has a 12.7 mm pitch, so 12 full links should measure 304.8 mm pin to pin. With a steel rule, 306.3 mm means 0.5%, 307.1 mm means 0.75% and 307.8 mm means 1%. L'Atelier's chain guide treats 0.75% as "replace now" and 1% as chain plus cassette, chainrings probably too; its seasonal checklist is stricter for 11/12-speed, where the line is 0.5%. Replacing at 0.5% typically gets you 2 to 3 chains per cassette.

If you fit a new chain and it skips under load on your most-used sprockets, the cassette is worn: its teeth have shaped themselves to the old, stretched chain. For gear cables, L'Atelier's rule of thumb is a new set every 2 years, or every year if you ride regularly in the wet. Use compression (SIS) outer for gears and spiral outer for brakes; never swap them.

Brakes: pads, rotors and fluid

• Pads: new disc pads have about 3 to 4 mm of compound. Order replacements below 1 mm; at 0.5 mm you are at the limit and close to braking on the backing plate.
• Pad shape: buying "Shimano pads" is not enough. A B01S and a J03A are different shapes; check the code for your calliper.
• Bedding in: 20 to 30 progressive stops from about 20 km/h, without touching the rotor with your fingers. Clean a contaminated rotor with isopropyl alcohol first.
• Rotors: respect the minimum thickness (often 1.5 mm) and spin the wheel to check for intermittent rubbing.
• Fluid: Shimano runs on mineral oil, SRAM/Avid on DOT 5.1, and the two must never be mixed. Bleed Shimano brakes at least every 12 months, every 6 months for enduro or downhill.

Bearings and wheels

Headset: front brake on, rock the bike along the fork axis. To rule out the front hub, repeat while holding the fork crown. To remove play on an Ahead headset, loosen the stem clamp bolts, tighten the top cap to 2-3 Nm (no more, or you crush the bearings), then retighten the stem bolts, typically to 5-6 Nm. L'Atelier's bearing guide suggests servicing the headset every 6 months or 3,000 km in dry conditions, more often in rain.

Bottom bracket: lateral play in the cranks, clicking or grinding means a tired bearing; the bearing guide gives a 6-12 month interval, every 3 months for winter mountain biking. Hubs: spin the wheel by the axle and rock the rim; check for play every 3 months, regrease cup-and-cone hubs once a year. Wheels: a 1-2 mm wobble is common and easy to true with quarter turns of the spoke key; more than 5 mm, a cracked rim or a carbon wheel is a job for a professional.

Torque and lubrication: the finishing pass

Go round the bike with a torque wrench. L'Atelier's general ranges, to be checked against the value printed on each part:

• Stem bolts: 5-6 Nm, handlebar clamp tightened in a cross pattern.
• Seatpost clamp: 6-8 Nm, low end on carbon.
• Brake calliper bolts: 6-8 Nm; 6-bolt rotor bolts 4 Nm, Center Lock lockring 40 Nm.
• Cassette lockring: 40 Nm; pedals 35-40 Nm (the left pedal is reverse-threaded).
• Thru-axles: 12-15 Nm, check the frame or hub spec.

Then lubricate: chain (dry lube in summer, wet lube in winter), a drop at each cable entry, derailleur and brake pivots. Keep WD-40 off the chain: it is a degreaser, not a lubricant, and on bearings it dissolves the existing grease.

Five mistakes L'Atelier sees after a home service

1. Torque by feel. A stem bolt done up by hand can easily end up at 10-12 Nm instead of 5-6 Nm. On a carbon bar or steerer, that is how cracks start, and carbon gives no warning before it fails.
2. Grease in the wrong place. A drop of grease on aluminium-to-aluminium threads keeps the torque reading accurate; on carbon contact surfaces use carbon assembly paste instead.
3. Pads ruined during a bleed. One drop of mineral oil on the pads and they are finished. Take the pads out before bleeding.
4. The wrong outer. Spiral brake outer on a gear cable compresses under load and gives vague, mushy shifting. Cut outers with a proper cutter, deburr the end and fit a ferrule.
5. Pads glazed on day one. Braking hard on the first descent with new pads glazes the compound. Bed them in progressively first.

None of these needs special skill to avoid, just the right sequence: clean, measure, replace what is beyond its limit, then torque and lubricate last so you are not contaminating parts you have just fitted.

Between the two services

• Every ride (2 min): tyre pressure (it drops 0.3 to 1 bar a week), wheels secure, brake test.
• Weekly (15 min): chain clean and lube, tyre inspection.
• Monthly (30 min): chain wear, headset play, spoke tension, pads.
• E-bikes: chain and cassette wear 1.5 to 2 times faster because of motor torque, so monthly chain checks are essential.

For a value specific to your bike, the L'Atelier bike mechanics base answers questions such as "How often should I bleed Shimano hydraulic brakes?" with the source passage.