Biking 101: Bike maintenance requires a few tools and a desire to learn

Sophomore John Estes has a small bike shop in his bedroom closet.

Estes keeps wheels, frames, inner tubes and other bike parts in his apartment where he builds older bikes he gives away. A self-taught bike expert, Estes said it was easy to learn basic bike repair and maintenance.

"They're fairly simple machines," Estes said. "So once you have somebody show you it or fool around with it, you can figure it out on your own."

Estes began bike building in high school when he started fixing up old frames from his garage.

"You see one bike in the trash, and the next thing you know, you have a lot of bikes in your house," Estes said.

Estes said a few basic tools such as a plastic tire lever and some Allen wrenches are enough to fix simple problems.

"It's fairly easy [to make repairs] if you're into it," he said.

Lesson 1: Basic Maintenance

Although Kirksville does not have any bike shops, students do not have to travel all the way to Columbia to get their bikes repaired.

Todd Guess, service manager at Cyclextreme Bicycle Warehouse in Columbia, Mo., said bicyclists could easily learn to do work on their own bikes. He said that although bikes that are ridden frequently should get a tune-up once a year, most basic bike maintenance is easy to do.

"One of the most important things you can do is keep your tires inflated, lubricate your bike and chain often and if you do your own work, change your cables often," Guess said.

Keeping tires pumped to the correct pressure can make riding easier, he said.

"Tires are porous, so they're going to lose air constantly," he said. "If you're riding a lot, it makes sense to pump them up before every ride, but you could probably get away with once a week."

Tires that are underinflated make the rim of the wheel more vulnerable, Guess said.

"Say for instance you hit a pot hole you didn't expect," he said. "If you have lots of air in the tire it will act as a buffer, if not, it will compress to the rim, and you'll get a pinch flat. It also increases the likelihood you'll knock your wheel out of alignment."

In general, mountain bike tires should be inflated to 60 psi, while comfort and hybrid bike tires should get 80 psi. Road bike tires typically are inflated to 100 psi or higher, Guess said. The correct air pressure should be printed on the tire.

"You need a good pump," he said. "Either a floor pump or a frame pump, which fits on the bike itself," he said.

Guess said another important part of bike care is lubricating any moving part including the chain and pivots using a good bike lubricant.

"You want to stay away from WD40," he said. "It's vegetable based so it tends to gunk up. It attracts a lot of dirt, especially on the chain."

If a chain is dry or rusted or makes a rattling sound, Guess said it's time to reapply a lubricant.

"Often chain lubricant is applied too liberally," he said. "It's easy to assume the outside needs lubrication, but it's the inside of the chain that needs it. You can spray it on as liberally as you want, but it's important to wipe it off once it's had a chance to seep in."

Lesson 2: Bike Laws

Donna Bailey, instructor of mathematics, said she daily takes her bike out and rides the half-mile to campus, like she's been doing for the past 20 years.

"I'll run into town for errands," she said. "It's an excuse to get some exercise. I like the gasoline savings and the fact I'm not polluting the environment."

Bailey said that although she's aware of the laws about bicycles, she sometimes sets a poor example for students.

"I always tell my husband if it's convenient for me to be a vehicle, I'll use those rules," she said. "If it's convenient for me to be a pedestrian, I'll use those rules."

In a business district, bikers are prohibited from riding on the sidewalk by Missouri statute 300.347. Police Capt. Tim King, of the Kirksville Police Department, said he sees a lot of bicycle violations on the Square. King said he also sees people biking the wrong way on a one-way street. Violations like these often lead to accidents, King said.

"[The accidents are] not where someone comes up behind the bicyclist or meets the bicyclist but where the bike came off of the side of the sidewalk and runs into a car," he said.

King said the KPD officers don't always stop the bicyclists who violate Missouri Statutes, however, if he sees people biking unsafely, he will stop them.

"If we've got someone who's whipping around cars, ... if we see someone who buzzes past us and goes through the intersection, those are the ones we're going to stop," King said.

King said bicyclists who improperly secure their bikes by attaching them to utility poles will have their locks cut and bikes hauled away.

Bailey said she usually doesn't worry about locking up her bike because she doesn't think anyone would want the rusty piece of equipment she rides throughout the year.

However, she has had experience with a disappearing bike before. Bailey said one time she rode her bike to the bank where she parked it out front but didn't secure it. When she returned a few moments later, it was gone.

"I wasn't in there very long," she said. "I went out, and it was gone. I looked up and down the streets."

Bailey never reported it to the police, and a few months later she saw her bike again.

"The city had an auction where they sold bikes," she said. "That afternoon my neighbor came home with two or three bikes. ... One of them was my bike."

Lesson 3: Preventing bike theft

Every other year, the Kirksville Police Department lines up hundreds of bikes at the courthouse for an auction. The bikes, many rusted and falling apart, rarely bring in much money, said Laura Guy, director of finance for Kirksville. These are ownerless bikes that are stolen and ridden for a while, then dumped, Sgt. Leon Shears, a Department of Public Safety Officer. Shears said he estimates that two bikes have been stolen each week in the past year.