I have been cycling since I was thirteen. When I say cycling, I mean riding on the main road. Other times, I used to ride around our compound and neighborhood but now I can take my bike out of home and compete with heavy vehicles
From the time I began to take this out of home, it began to develop some faults which I wasn't used to. Due to bad roads in my region, I suffered several bike faults. I had to take the bike to the workshop several times until the day I finally decided to work them out myself.
The chain is a very crucial part of any bike as it's the force transmitter. The force on the pedal is transmitted to the wheels which rotate and make the cyclist move. Fixing chain blocks is one of my most detested corrective maintenance. Whenever I suffer a chain block on the road, it's either I stain my hands fixing the greasy chain or I push the bike home. I can manage flat tires but chain blocks are the worst. Riding on a flat tire is not also advisable as it affects the wheel.
I used to suffer from chain block. Due to some sand getting into the chain holes, the chain most times gets blocked even when I'm still on the road. The two main seasons in my country are the rainy and the dry seasons. During the rainy season, my bike can suffer some form of rust and I will have to oil the spokes. But the case of sand getting into the chain holes can occur any season as long as I ride along the sandy untarred roads.
The main parts of the bike that suffer rust are the spokes and some parts of the wheel. This is because these areas are close to the ground and when I ride fast, the wheel spins flood water all over the spokes. This is a direct result of bad roads.
But I was surprised to check my bike yesterday to see that my sit holder was also getting rusted gradually, how could this be?
I tried to see how this happened and found out that it was the parking spot that brought about this occurrence. I often park my bike openly in our compound as we have no separate garage for cars or bikes.
I sometimes cover up the bike with a polythene sheet. I found out that covering the bike with polythene sheets doesn't stop dew from penetrating. This simply means that it's daily dew that brought about the seat rust.
I don't have any plans on how and where to keep my bike for safety.
I can't wait till our roads can be amended or properly constructed and I pray that when this happens, bike paths will also be made for cyclists like me.
Only a few major roads in my area have cycling paths and this is very bad as I most times see cyclists competing with cars and other road vehicles. This is a call to an accident occurrence.
Ever since I learned how to solve this issue of bike breakdown, I have learned how to practice preventive maintenance rather than corrective maintenance. Preventive maintenance comprises every action taken to prevent upcoming faults while corrective maintenance is carried out on the bike when it has finally had the fault or broken down.
If I may ask, which is the best? I know everyone would go for preventive maintenance. It's the best as prevention is always better than cure.
Thanks for reading. All the images are mine.