Bike Prep for the Winter Trainer Season
Why Maintenance Matters for Indoor Riding
Isn't a Trainer Ride Clean?
Gone are the days of riding through the rain and mud with constant bike cleaning as your bike has likely made a switch to spend a lot more time on the trainer. While it might seem like your pain cave is a pretty clean environment and you don't need to clean your bike anymore, it might be even more important to stay on top of your bike maintenance during trainer season.
What Damages Your Bike Indoors
Sweat. While you don't get in the rain or mud on the trainer, there is also no wind to keep your sweat from dripping straight onto the frame, headset, and handlebar area.
Sweat is extremely damaging to your components and can cause some serious issues like handlebars snapping on those early spring rides.
Anyplace there are mismatched metals on the bike such as a steel shifter clamp and an aluminum bar, titanium stem and steel bolts, aluminum stem and steel bolts, etc pose a major risk for quick damage. This is due to the interaction between the differing materials and salty sweat. In short that sweat is the missing piece to creating a small battery that accelerates any corrosion that is happening.
While this is a major culprit on trainer damage, you can also damage metal parts such as headset bearings that might even be the same metal but they are contacting a carbon race and have a steady pool of corrosive sweat sitting on top of them. This can lead to the bearing being seized into the frame, ruin the smooth functioning of the bearings, etc. With all that, it is extremely important to maintain these portions of the bike.
Can a Carbon Bike Be Ridden on the Trainer
Mounting a Bike On the Trainer
Mounting the bike on your trainer is the most important step to ensure that the bike isn't damaged. On a direct drive trainer the first step is to ensure that you are using the correct end caps or adapters for your frame. The trainer is often set up for a 135mm quick release skewer frame default out of the box. If you have your standard rim brake bike, this may be the right option for you, but it could be a 130mm spacing as well, so be sure to check so you don't put unintentional pressure on the rear triangle.
For a thru axle bike the two most common standards are 12x142 and 12x148. Most modern mountain bikes are 12x148 while road and most gravel bikes are 12x142. Check with your frame manufacturer to make sure you have the right spaces.
Before mounting the bike on the trainer ensure whatever axel you are using has threads that are greased well. This will help stop a lot of squeaking from rocking back and forth and help prevent any corrosion issues from unintentional sweat exposure.
If you are using a standard wheel on trainer, make sure to use the appropriate trainer skewer. Using a standard road skewer can make it difficult for the trainer to connect securely to the trainer and can damage the skewer.
Before getting on the bike to ride, we like to do a final check to ensure the entire bike is secure and not risking damaging anything. This is an extremely simple test of holding the saddle and trying to move the frame back and forth. Keep an eye to make sure the entire system moves as one rather than anything moving more or less than the other items. For example if the frame rocks back and forth but the trainer doesn't move, you likely don't have the bike mounted correctly and are at risk of damaging the bike.
Trainer Season Bike Check
We talked about all the ways you can damage your bike, but what do you do to make sure that any damage is minimized or eliminated? We go step by step on areas to inspect.
Handlebar Check For Trainer Season
Handlebars are likely the most important component to check on your bike around trainer season. With handlebars being a safety critical component, damage here can be catastrophic. Removing the bar tape installed on your bike and ensuring that everything is cleaned well is key. This gives you an opportunity to check for any damage that bar tape would otherwise cover up. This also is the perfect time to use some cleaner or a gear wipe to remove any sweat or dirt residue.
Assuming there is no damage it will be great to wrap your handlebars with a fresh new roll of bar tape and clean all of the sweat residue that can lead to bacteria growth and a less than ideal odor. Another great tip is to use a small amount of high quality anti-sieze/carbon paste on the point where the shifter clamp contacts the handlebar.
Prepping Bike Bolts for the Trainer
Inspecting all of your cockpit bolts is a must for trainer season. All the sweat has a tendancy to pool around the faceplate bolts, stem clamp bolts, top cap, etc.
It is ideal to use a high quality anti-sieze to protect those bolts from corrosive damage, seizing in the threads, and getting an accurate torque measurement during installation.
Chain Maintenance for the Trainer
Drivetrain efficiency is something the even us at SILCA can admit is likely not that important during your winter trainer workouts. With that being said, you don't want to use a worn chain and damage your cassette and chainrings just because you aren't concerned about efficiency of your drivetrain.
At the start of the trainer season is the perfect time to check the wear on your chain. If it is getting worn from a summer of big miles, don't neglecting using a fresh chain to keep the rest of your components in top shape.
Drivetrain efficiency is something the even us at SILCA can admit is likely not that important during your winter trainer workouts. With that being said, you don't want to use a worn chain and damage your cassette and chainrings just because you aren't concerned about efficiency of your drivetrain.
At the start of the trainer season is the perfect time to check the wear on your chain. If it is getting worn from a summer of big miles, don't neglecting using a fresh chain to keep the rest of your components in top shape.
Inspecting Your Headset for the Trainer
The headset is likely the most commonly damaged component from riding on the trainer. It is really easy to let sweat drip on the bearings and after a couple of months they get ruined. Inspecting the bearing before and after a long trainer season is key.
The main things you are looking for during this inspecting is to ensure that there is plenty of good grease to protect the metal from corrosion and that the bearings are turning smoothly. If the bearings in your headset have corroded already, it is a great time to ensure you get a new bearing cartridge before it gets potentially seized into the frame.
How to Maintain a Bike For Trainer Season
How to Wrap Handlebars
After you inspect your handlebars, it is time to install a fresh roll of bar tape. While wrapping your own bars at home can seem to be a daunting task for some, with a little bit of patience and reviewing the technique, almost anybody can wrap their own bars at home.
We have a video here on our favorite way to wrap your handlebars. There are plenty of different methods but as long as you are intentional about how you wrap them, it will turn out great!
Best Practices for installing cockpit bolts
During your inspection of the bolts, it is ideal to completely remove all of the bolts from your stem and give them a thorough cleaning. This is key to remove any start of corrosion.
Once the bolt is clean, it is absolutely key to coat the threads of the bolt in a high quality anti-seize to ensure that the bolts are protected from the inevitable dripping sweat that they are going to encounter.
This anti-seize coating is also crucial in ensuring that your bolts are installed with the intended force when using your torque wrench.
Almost if not all bolts on a bicycle have a printed number next to the bolt letting you know the torque max for that bolt. Most stems and headsets are between 4-6nm and it is critical to tighten them to that point. It will protect the bolt, your stem, and your handlebar to prevent any of the above from breaking over time or when hitting a bump when you go back outside!
Protecting your Headset on the Trainer
Cleaning your headset bearings can be a simple task that our friend @onelastlap9302 did a great video on YouTube showing the basics. If you don't have an ultrasonic cleaner it is as simple as removing the seal, removing the grease, installing fresh grease, re-installing the seal, and you are ready to go.
The only big change between this and using an ultrasonic cleaner is the amount of grease you will be able to remove from the bearing but either is a great option.
When to Perform a Bike Check On the Trainer
Start of Trainer Season
At the start of trainer season there are a few things that are key. Ensuring all of the bolts and headset bearings have a good coating of fresh grease is the number one thing to do to protect your bike. You can do one final full bike wash to have a sparkling bike, then go through our steps for protecting your bolts. This will give you enough to have a great trainer season without damaging your bike.
End of Trainer Season
At the end of trainer season is the ideal time to make sure that your handlebars are safe to go back on the road. Unwrap your bars, clean the bars, and follow our protection advise above. This can be done at the beginning of the season as well but if you only want to replace bar tape once per year, it is ideal before you go out on the road to be confident that your handlebars are safe to ride again.
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