Empty Vessel

I am completely new to the world of mountain biking - all mountain biking I have done before has involved borrowed or rental bikes. Of course, being me, I bought a bike with lots of bells and whistles (to be fair it was used...) and now I have no idea what I need to do to maintain this bike. I was in the store the other day and was amazed to see that they were selling pumps for the shocks (this is a full suspension). To date my bike maintenance has involved (a) pumping up the tires, (b) replacing any flats, (c) having the chain cleaned and relubed once a year, (d) replacing pedals and seats as required, (e) raising and lowering the seatpost and handlebars to taste, and (f) having the brakes adjusted annually. Do I need a shock pump? Do I need to put fluid in my hydraulic brakes. Help! What else don't I know that I don't know?

Can someone give me a checklist and a maintenance schedule? I feel like I just bought a car :)

Mel

Have you looked on the manufacturer's web site to download the owner's manuals? First place to start.

Then, go to www.parktool.com for good basics.

Mtbike chains, brakes and cables need a lot more attention that a once a year look over.

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Originally Posted by MelC

(a) pumping up the tires, (b) replacing any flats,

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Excellent...

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Originally Posted by MelC

(c) having the chain cleaned and relubed once a year,

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This is something you are going to have to do more freqently depending on how often you ride. My mountain bike gets degreased and lubed after every off-road ride. If I've been just riding on the road, then maybe once a week. It certainly gets degreased and lubed before every race.

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Originally Posted by MelC

(d) replacing pedals and seats as required, (e) raising and lowering the seatpost and handlebars to taste, and (f) having the brakes adjusted annually

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This is good...

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Originally Posted by MelC

. Do I need a shock pump? Do I need to put fluid in my hydraulic brakes. Help! What else don't I know that I don't know?

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If you have a front suspension air shock, then you might want to buy a shock pump. They are around $40 give or take. You are going to want to set them to what the manufacturers specs say for your weight. If you recently bought this bike, maybe the bike shop would do it for free (then you could hold off on the shock pump for a while). If you have hydraulic brakes you are going to have to learn how to bleed the lines and maybe adjust the calipers.

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Originally Posted by MelC

Can someone give me a checklist and a maintenance schedule?

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Like SadieKate said, read your manual. You might need to go beyond that though. You might want to go to specific manufactures websites and pull their instruction manuals for your suspension and brakes.

I recently bought a full suspension Trek Fuel EX 9 and it has more bells and whistles than I could imagine. The suspension has many complicated settings that I'm going to have to learn how to adjust. I have suspension remote on my handlebars....I can adjust both front and rear while I'm riding. Now that is crazy!

The shock pump is pretty easy to use. You need it for the rear shock. Once you have one, it's amazing how much you needed it and didn't know...

The brakes manufacturer's website should have an owner's manual for them. My brakes are mechanical, so I never had to mess around with hydraulics.

All my friends and BF that have the chain cleaner thing that you run the chain through swear by it.

Nanci

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Originally Posted by Nanci

The shock pump is pretty easy to use. You need it for the rear shock.

Nanci

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Don't you mean front shock? Am I going to have to pump up my rear shock also? I'm going to have to download all the manuals for my new bike.....Man, I have so many bells and whistles on my new Trek, it's gonna take a month to learn how to set everything up!

You can need a pump for both the fork and the rear shock. The same one should work for both. Download the manuals for each and read the recommendations for settings based on rider weight.

It's easy! You'll be fine! I'm sure the LBS guys would be happy to give you a lesson on the shock pump if you need them to. Like SK says, the manufacturer's site for the shocks will have a chart for psi based on rider weight. It's not complicated at all.

Nanci

I don't know that I'm worried about the shock pump itself and setting the shocks up for my weight. (My bro has a shock pump and is going to give me a lesson). It is all the rebound settings and compressions settings...and the remote control. It's a lot of crap to deal with! But, I guess I paid for it, so I better learn to use it. Racing season is a month away and I feel like I don't have that much time to dial in my bike or learn how to best use all those settings. It was so much easier with a hardtail! But my back and shoulders will thank me.

http://www2.trekbikes.com/bikes/bike...d=1166600&f=14

Take a deep breath. The compression and rebound settings apply to your fork whether it is on a hardtail or an FS. Once you get these dialed in you can leave it alone. You can probably get really close riding on and off curbs in your neighborhood.

Is the remote control for a lockout on the fork and rear shock? Ignore it. It's just one extra complexity that isn't really critical to the ride. Test it out when you feel comfortable.

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Originally Posted by SadieKate

Take a deep breath. The compression and rebound settings apply to your fork whether it is on a hardtail or an FS.

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Not on my old hardtail....The front shock was so simple....All it had was a nob that you tighten or loosen arbitrarily...you couldn't lock anything out or set anything to your weight (no air shock). It was a pathetic excuse for a front suspension fork. I don't know if they even make shocks like that anymore, do they? Maybe on lower end bikes?

The guy at the bike shop said I have 3 settings I need to dial in blah, blah, etc. So I guess I'm gonna have to download all those manuals and have a reading session this weekend. I would really like to take it off road to dial in all this suspension crap, but in WI the trails don't open until May. Bummer.

Remote
http://www.sram.com/en/rockshox/cont...loc/poploc.php
Rear
http://www.sram.com/en/rockshox/moun...ks/mc/mc3r.php
Front
http://www.sram.com/en/rockshox/moun.../reba/team.php



Thanks for all the advice gals,

Thanks for the responses everyone. I downloaded what I could find off the Devinci site. Unfortunately this is a discontinued model from last year so I couldn't find the Owner's Manual which seems to be referred to in the tech manual. Because it is a used bike I didn't get all the papers with it. The good news, however, is that I bought it off a woman's mtb club in the area (it was a used team bike). They threw in a few membership so I was going to check them out and I don't doubt they will be more than happy to give me some pointers on this specific model.

Mel

MelC, you should be able to find all the manuals for your fork, rear shock, brakes, drivetrain components, etc., on the specific manufacturer's site.

Call Devinci. They may be able to send you the manual.