Posts tagged Mechanical Mondays

Last week, for Training Tuesday, we helped you get your body ready for a long gravel event, but what about your bike? Here’s five tips to get your bike ready to grind some gravel.

If you’re chomping at the bit to get ready for cyclocross, or even you’re in the middle of a mountain or road season and tired …

There is no denying that disc brakes are the dominant stock brake type among cyclocross and gravel bikes today, and even the most affordable bikes typically come with mechanical disc brakes. But they’re not always the simplest to set up correctly. Learn how to best adjust your mechanical disc brakes in this piece.

Updating your ‘cross drivetrain for off-season rides makes sense for the many of us that are in the one-bike-to-rule-them all camp. Short of having separate cyclocross and gravel bikes, drivetrain modification makes sense. But what to do? We take a look here.

At this point of the year, it’s been a long cyclocross season for most everyone. While you got your bike to the start line of each race in hopefully great condition, the thought of going over it yet again may seem like more trouble than it’s worth.

If you’ve ever experienced noisy or howling hydraulic disc brakes on your cyclocross bike, this week’s Mechanical Monday solution costs a few cents, takes just …

Gluing tubulars is tricky business. And writing about it is just as difficult, if not more so. After all, everyone has his or her own gluing style, and everyone will tell you that his or her style is the best one. One of our brave mechanics, Jason Gardner of Jinji Cycles, decided to share his expertise with us.

This weekend at Barry-Roubaix, cyclocross bikes reigned as the primary pick for most open riders. As you would expect from a state packed with engineers and …

This week, we’re all about making sure that your bike is being taken care of for the next couple of months, even if you’re not …

If you’re like us, and we’re betting you are, you’re currently going through your gear and figuring out what little things you need for the …

If you’re anything like us here at Cyclocross Magazine, you’re starting to dust off the cyclocross bike and get it into tip-top shape for fall. …

It’s the off-season, so it’s time to be making changes to your cyclocross bike after what you experienced last season. For some, that could mean …

Working in the pits for a friend can be just as rewarding as racing in a cyclocross race … right? OK, odds are good you …

Pitting can be tricky business: there’s always the chance that your racer will have a grievous mechanical issue, there are hand-offs, you may have a …

The season starts in less than a week — is your bike ready? Mechanical Mondays writer and mechanic Jeremy Chinn walks us through improving the shifting on one specific bike, but you can also look at his advice in a much broader spectrum of bike maintenance, upkeep and constant improvement.

OK people, it’s August, races are coming up quick, and ’cross prep is happening around the country. Now that you’ve dialed in the bike parts, shaved some weight off of your frame (bike or otherwise), gotten the tubies set to roll, what’s left? Well, its time to work on the shoes, two of the key contact points with your bike, and remove the opportunity for dirt, sticks, mud, rocks or other debris to get caught up between the shoe sole and your cleat. Face it, you just can’t go as fast or crush your competitors without being clipped in fully.

Gluing tubulars is tricky business. And writing about it is just as difficult, if not more so. After all, everyone has his or her own gluing style, and everyone will tell you that his or her style is the best one. One of our brave mechanics, Jason Gardner of Jinji Cycles, decided to share his expertise with us.

Gluing tubulars can be stressful enough, and there are so many different “best ways” of getting the job done. This week, we wanted to look at one question that we hear a lot when talking about gluing up tubulars: when gluing new tires on a wheel that’s been used and glued before, what kind of prep should you be doing? And more specifically, how clean do you want your rims to be before gluing on new tires?

It’s that time of year again: time to pull your cyclocross bike out of storage, take a good, long look at it and think, “Well, now what does it need?” Because we’re bike racers. And our bikes always need something, preferably something shiny and new. However, if you’re on a strict bike budget, there are some sneaky ways to upgrade or update your bike for the season, there’s an easy solution: accessories. (And yes, we realize that this piece reads like a fashion magazine article on making that Little Black Dress look brand-new by simply adding new jewelry or shoes.) Still, if you’ve been racing on — or just bought — a stock bike, we have some suggestions for how to dress it up so it stands out in the field (hopefully because you snagged the hole shot.)

The sad reality is that most catastrophic failures in cross racing result from very simple factors. I have compiled a small list of race ending mechanical problems that could have been avoided with a small dose of precaution and a dash of extra care. These are not all or even the most common mechanical issues in cross racing but these all have two things in common: 1. They can absolutely end your race, giving you a regrettable DNF. 2. They can easily be prevented.

When you invest in a set of tubular tires, you pray they never flat. Because let’s face it, repairing tubulars is a whole lot of trouble. However, while it’s tempting to just chuck flatted tubulars, there are a few options worth exploring first. The most obvious one is fixing the tire yourself, and it can be done if you’re a little handy with a needle and a patch kit.

We’ve been reviewing new tires like the Limus from Challenge, and talking about some great wheelsets you might want to consider for the season. A …

Sometimes, it’s easy to forget that when it comes to bike maintenance, sometimes the simplest tools can be the most effective. For example, Dave Drumm …

Daimeon Shanks, pro mechanic and co-owner of The Service Course repair shop in Boulder, Colorado, has compiled his list of must-haves for the cyclocross pits. …

Daimeon Shanks – pro mechanic and co-owner of The Service Course repair shop in Boulder, Colorado, is here to school you on keeping you shifting …

Gut-Wrenching Mechanical Mondays makes its heroic return, this time under the guidance of Daimeon Shanks and Nick Legan – pro mechanics and co-owners of The …

Before you forget that still-muddy skinsuit you left in a corner of the basement after your last race and put your bike away for this …

Sometimes it takes faithful pit help to keep a racer in contention. This week’s Gut-Wrenching Mechanical Mondays feature describes how to do a down and …

As Cyclocross Magazine contributor Dave Drumm is quick to point out, both the holidays and the end of cyclocross season are good times to reflect …