Cycling maintenance tips, gear tracking guides, and updates from the WatchMy.bike team.
An MTB service schedule that runs on ride hours and kilometres: every ride, every 25 hours, every 50 hours, every 100-200 hours — with the hours-to-km conversion for a normal trail rider.
Strava Gear is an odometer, not a maintenance tracker: one component per type, no reminders, web-only, and retired parts vanish. Where the limits are, and four ways to fill the gap.
My mountain bike costs €1.33 per km as a lifetime average and €2.27 by the sum of its parts. Both are right. The formula, which denominator to use, and why riding more beats buying cheaper.
No app measures chain wear. Software predicts from distance, gauges measure elongation, and the two disagree. What automatic chain monitoring can honestly do, and where a €12 tool is still required.
What skipped repairs really cost: three cascade failures with EU price ranges, and the annual maintenance math for a 4,000 km/year rider — prevent vs repair.
Your bike's total km are not your chain's km. Four ways to track per-component mileage — paper, spreadsheet, Strava, dedicated tracker — and where each breaks.
What actually wears on an e-bike: chains at 1,000–2,000 km on mid-drives, pads eaten by mass and speed, a motor you never open, plus battery care in 3 rules.
RockShox's wireless dropper: 100–250 mm travel, ~60-hour battery, 300-hour service interval, €600 without the controller. Living with it, tracked in hours.
Gravel doesn't need different maintenance — it needs road intervals cut by conditions. Chain checks every 500 km, sealant every 3 months, bearings yearly.
A distance-based road bike service schedule: what to check every ride, every 500 km, every 1,000 km, and each season — plus the two items that run on a clock.
A condition-adjusted lifespan chart for every wearing part — chains, cassettes, tires, pads, bearings — with honest multipliers for wet, e-bikes, and weight.
A tire pressure calculator that already knows your bike: it prefills weight, tyre width and surface from your setup, then saves the result per bike.
Bar tape is one of three places your body touches the bike, yet it's replaced last. When worn tape costs you grip, and how to wrap drop bars in 20 minutes.
Hydraulic brakes feel firm until they don't. Mineral oil vs DOT, how to spot a brake that needs bleeding, how often to change fluid, and how to bleed it.
Three things changed about tire pressure: better calculators, a real Presta challenger in Clik valves, and 100-gram electric pumps. The new state of play.
The bottom bracket is the #1 creak suspect. Whether to regrease, replace the cartridge, or replace the interface depends on your ride — here are the rules.
A cassette can outlast 2–4 chains — but only if you catch the chain at 0.5%. The wear math, the new-chain skip test, and when chainrings are done too.
Worn pads don't fail dramatically — they fade. What happens as they wear, the numbers manufacturers use, and how to stop guessing when it's time to swap.
How long do bike tires last? The visual warning signs your road, gravel, or MTB tires need replacing — plus distance guidelines, age limits, and tracking.
Your chain silently costs you watts and money. The science of chain wear, how to replace one yourself, when the cassette goes too, and how lube changes it.
Track every component and showcase your builds to the world
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