It’s still fairly uncommon in London to find a bike with chain guards fitted. Yet, they are useful for protecting your clothes and your bike. Hence why they are a common feature on Boris Bikes and pretty much all Dutch style bikes. You can retro fit a chain guard to your bike. However, it can [...]
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Best bicycle maintenance books
On London Cyclist we offer our online bike maintenance course and the Bike Doctor app, but if you are looking for bike maintenance books, then I can certainly recommend a few of them! Note that I’ve not found a good book with repair instructions for hub gears and hub brakes. If anyone has – please [...]
A step by step system for easily maintaining your bike at home
The essentials to bike maintenance – Allen keys and a bottle of wine! Slow changing gears, brakes that don’t bring a bike to a quick stop and strange creaks coming from near your pedals. Everyone recognises the symptoms of a bike in need of attention. Most people would love to have a bike that runs [...]
The Bicycle M Check
The M Check answers two important questions: Is my bike safe to ride, or will a wheel come flying off, just as I start to pedal? Are there any areas of my bike that I should be looking at? It’s one of the most useful tools for anyone who wants to maintain a bike themselves [...]
Learn to effortlessly maintain your bike in a weekend
Some of the feedback I’ve been receiving from the first 50 people who tested the Bike Maintenance in a Weekend course has been amazing: “What I especially liked was the mechanic was very soft spoken, easy to understand, and did not talk down, as you see in many YouTube videos. I just wish I had [...]
Have you ever had any of these thoughts while riding your bike?
I’d be riding my bike and these thoughts would be running through my head: “I really need to adjust my brakes, I’m pulling them far back and its taking too long for my bike to come to a stop” “I’d love to replace my front tyre, I wonder whether it is too worn to ride [...]
How to cut your bike shop visits in half
Want to know the single most important thing you can do to cut your visits to the bike shop in half? Clean and oil your chain once every two to three weeks. It’s that simple and it will probably take you 5 minutes. Will most people do anything about this? Probably not. In fact, I [...]
What is stopping people from maintaining their bikes themselves?
Doing your own routine bike maintenance has many benefits. You can instantly fix your bike, without relying on the timetable of the local bike shop. You can save significant amounts of money on bike shop repairs. It can also be reassuring to know that if something goes wrong, you can fix it. So why don’t [...]
5 cheap and easy bike upgrades anyone can do
If you’d like to breathe some fresh life in to a well loved commuter bike, then here are 5 cheap and easy upgrades you can make. Bar tape If you’ve got road bike style, drop bars, then you’ve probably got some bar tape on there. This gets scruffy over time and doesn’t give you a [...]
Why do Boris Bikes hardly ever get punctures?
Have you ever wondered why cycle hire scheme bikes from around the world hardly ever get punctures? If you look closely at the tyres, you’ll find the answer. They tend to use Schwalbe Marathon Plus tyres. These tyres have a “five millimeter thick Smart Guard puncture protection belt made from special india rubber that in [...]
Best bike maintenance stand
Maintaining your bike becomes a whole lot more fun after you’ve purchased a bike maintenance stand. Otherwise, bikes have an annoying habit of constantly tipping over to one side, just as you are about to make an adjustment. Fortunately, the price of the maintenance stands has come down significantly over time, so that they can [...]
Why I’m switching to mtb style flat pedals
I’ve recently found that my shoes were slipping in damp conditions and that I was not transferring quite as much power in my pedal stroke as I would have liked. Therefore, I’ve switched to wide, mountain bike style flat pedals. For cyclists that don’t wish to go all the way and be clipped in to [...]
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Bike apps for the iPhone
Repair your bike, track your cycling and find the nearest London bike shop - all from your iPhone:
iPhone apps for cyclists
