Logging Maintenance Activites

[Judd]

Lumberjack Maintenance Plan:

If it squeaks, put some lubricant on it.
Ride it until it breaks, then replace it.

Write nothing down ever.

[Emm]

@Judd 175357 wrote:

Lumberjack Maintenance Plan:

If it squeaks, put some lubricant on it.
Ride it until it breaks, then replace it.

Write nothing down ever.

This is my plan too…

[rcannon100]

@n18 175356 wrote:

What do you do to log maintenance of your bike?

ME “Yo, ah, Pete, should that doohicky be dangling from that thingy??”

PETE “Um, dude, do you ever oil your bike?”

ME “Oil??”

[LhasaCM]

Strava allows you to add components to your gear from the website (if you just wanted to track wear and tear), but it doesn’t look like the interface is as friendly as the Feedback app. The latter is what I’d use if I were more organized about that kind of stuff and wasn’t living the n=1 life (though I will need to log my annual gearbox oil changes for warranty purposes).

[jrenaut]

I have a spreadsheet where i keep track of the mileage on my 3 bikes plus the car. I keep it mostly so I can be smug about the months where I do more bike miles than car miles. But I also add when I do maintenance. I don’t really use this information for much except complaining about how fast the longtail goes through brake pads.

[LhasaCM]

@jrenaut 175362 wrote:

I have a spreadsheet where i keep track of the mileage on my 3 bikes plus the car. I keep it mostly so I can be smug about the months where I do more bike miles than car miles. But I also add when I do maintenance. I don’t really use this information for much except complaining about how fast the longtail goes through brake pads.

For the car, I have an Automatic Pro (plugs into the OBD-II port, has a 3G connection, so I can get real-time notifications/tracking of where the car is/parked/any error codes it throws out/crash detection/etc.). I figure it’s not fair for only Google and Strava to have that kind of data on my whereabouts…

And for brake pads…I don’t think I’ve gotten more than 900 miles out of a pair (and that was with a lot less #kidical riding). Amazing what stopping that added weight does to brake pad wear.

[jrenaut]

@LhasaCM 175368 wrote:

And for brake pads…I don’t think I’ve gotten more than 900 miles out of a pair (and that was with a lot less #kidical riding). Amazing what stopping that added weight does to brake pad wear.

I get less than 500 on my rear pads. I think it’s from signalling with my left hand while braking with the right, plus being right handed so I probably naturally pull a little harder on that side.

[Crickey7]

I don’t even have that much of a plan.

[Birru]

@Judd 175357 wrote:

Lumberjack Maintenance Plan:

If it squeaks, put some lubricant on it.
Ride it until it breaks, then replace it.

Write nothing down ever.

You forgot one critical detail: When replacing broken components, always use it as a chance to upgrade.

@LhasaCM 175361 wrote:

Strava allows you to add components to your gear from the website (if you just wanted to track wear and tear), but it doesn’t look like the interface is as friendly as the Feedback app. The latter is what I’d use if I were more organized about that kind of stuff and wasn’t living the n=1 life (though I will need to log my annual gearbox oil changes for warranty purposes).

This is what I use since mileage is automatically calculated for me. It works well.

@jrenaut 175369 wrote:

I get less than 500 on my rear pads. I think it’s from signalling with my left hand while braking with the right, plus being right handed so I probably naturally pull a little harder on that side.

This seems really short to me, but I guess pads are cheap, especially rim brake pads. I switched to metallic pads with my disc brakes. According to Strava I got 2400mi out of my last set.

[huskerdont]

I have a notebook in the car glove box for when I change my oil etc., but have been too lazy to do something similar for the bikes. I used to go by the purchase dates on receipts and correlate that to the mileage a bike had at a particular date, but I’ve got in the habit lately of buying chains, cassettes, brake pads, and tires in advance so I always have spares, so I recently realized that no longer works. I now have to decide if this is something I wish to continue to care about or if I should allow myself to be more like Judd.

I think I’m going to buy a notebook or make a spreadsheet today.

[jrenaut]

@Birru 175389 wrote:

This seems really short to me, but I guess pads are cheap, especially rim brake pads. I switched to metallic pads with my disc brakes. According to Strava I got 2400mi out of my last set.

Yes but don’t forget that the Xtracycle fully loaded (me + 2 kids + the bike + backpacks etc) is in the neighborhood of 400 pounds.

[LhasaCM]

@Birru 175389 wrote:

This seems really short to me, but I guess pads are cheap, especially rim brake pads. I switched to metallic pads with my disc brakes. According to Strava I got 2400mi out of my last set.

It’s all relative – that seemed perfectly reasonable (if annoying) to me – but that’s because the most I’ve gotten out of a set of rear pads was 900 miles, and now that I’m riding more with the trailercycle, I’m probably closer to 700 miles of useful life the last few sets. And that’s with only one younger/smaller kid on a mostly trail-based #kidical commute (so less stop and go traffic to deal with).

[bobco85]

I’ve kept a spreadsheet going for the past 6 years tracking my mileage (odometer) for each bike, a few other stats (year’s mileage, month’s mileage, daily average), and a category for notes on any mechanical changes (flat tire, chain/cassette replacement, spokes, wheel installation, repairs, cleaning, etc.). I update it with a new entry probably once a week. It’s incredibly useful to be able to track what’s going on with each of my bikes, especially in my case for flats as a sign of tire wear.

I can upload a copy of it to Google Drive and post the link this evening (read: late tonight for y’all).

[Judd]

@huskerdont 175392 wrote:

I should allow myself to be more like Judd.

Wise words.

[Judd]

I got 5,000 miles out of a pair of disc brake pads once. The key is to wear away all of the pad and then keep going for a few thousand more miles.

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