Bike Clinic

After the Urban Ride, Matt conducted a bike clinic at I.Martin. He started off by teaching us how to clean the bike chain. I learned that it is best to clean your bike after every ride or least once a week. Cleaning involves using a rag to first wipe down the chain, then add lube to the chain and wipe it down one more time. Matt said a lot of riders tend to clean/lube their chain before going on a ride, however, he highly recommended that you clean/lube after the ride. The reason is because the chain is still pretty wet from the lube after cleaning, so if you take your bike out right away, the chain will pick up dirt and debris very easily which isn’t good. For this reason, he said it’s best to clean/lube after a ride, so that the chain has time to dry a little bit before you go out on your next ride. Good tip indeed!

Afterward, Matt showed us how to change a flat tire. Inevitably, every rider will get a flat tire and it is very important to know how to change a flat. Matt said that he went on a ride the week before with a group of folks and one of the riders got three flats on that ride. Three flats! Yikes!! I had learned how to change a flat before, but it’s been many years and I’d forgotten how to do it. And yes, I’ve gotten my share of flats myself. The bike clinic was very informative and it was definitely a good refresher course for me. When the time comes and I have to change a flat, I sure hope everything I learned will all come back to me.