What to do!  The race over the weekend was great and your bicycle treated you well and hopefully you had a PR bike split.  Generally after we have taken our post race nap we rummage through our transition bag, take out the smelly wet clothes, sneakers, bike shoes, etc,.  Our wetsuits are covered in sand, salt or lake water, so we rinse it and were done.  Ready for the next race and ride!  Well if we did that after our races and forgot to wash our bikes dry them off and lube critical parts we would be speeding up the process of needing to replace our bike.  Too often I see in the shop seized seatposts, stems, headsets and any other vulnerable part of your bike the corrode quickly from salt either from our sweat or the swim if it was in the saltwater.  To replace a $100 seatpost, $50 10spd chain headset or even the bolts on the aero bars can cost well over the race entry fee and we can completely prevent this from happening by post race bike maintenance.

                Here are the things you need to do to continually care for your bike after a race.  First thing is wash your bike.  Get a bucket and car-wash soap and sponge or cloth and carefully was your bike, wipe the frame wheels, cranks and handle bars and be sure to was your seat and aero bar pads.  Rinse your bike with a very low pressure water rinse so not to get water into bearings and critical parts.  Rinse those arm rest aero pads and seat.  Once you have washed the bike, wipe everything down with a dry cloth and finish with your chain being dried last.  Let the bike sit in the sun for a good half hour to hour to heat it up and get the rest of the moisture out of the components and crevices.  Once you have done the get some lightweight chain lube and put a drop on every exposed bolt, around your seatpost and handlebar stem were it enters the frame. And we finish by dripping chain lube on your chain until fully coated and then wipe of the excess lube.  This simple post race maintenance can keep you biking looking and running like new for many races to come.  If you don’t have the time to wash and clean off your bike then bring it in to the Trek Bicycle Store of Fairfield and we can do that for you

Thank you,

Dan Kurzatkowski

Trek Bicycle Store of Fairfield, CT

1215 Post Road, #2

Fairfield, CT 06824

Phone: 203-256-8735 (TREK)