How often should I clean and lube my bike chain?

For wet or drip lubes, manufacturers typically specify 100-200 miles between applications: Finish Line rates its wet lube for over 150 miles, and SILCA says to reapply its drip wax every 200 miles. Hot-melt wax goes about 300 miles per treatment per SILCA and Zero Friction Cycling, and wants a fully stripped chain to start. Riding in rain, dust, or grit shortens all of these intervals.

When should I replace my bike chain?

Park Tool's published guidance: replace at 0.5% elongation on a chain-wear gauge for 11- and 12-speed drivetrains, 0.75% for 10-speed and below, and 1% for single-speed. SRAM rates its own chains to 0.8% on an approved checker. Replacing a worn chain on time protects the much more expensive cassette and chainrings from wearing to match it.

Should I track maintenance by miles, hours, or time?

Use whichever best reflects the wear. Chain and drivetrain wear track mileage or ride hours; sealant and hydraulic fluid degrade on a calendar whether you ride or not. A good system lets you set each task by the measure that fits it.

How do I keep up with maintenance on multiple bikes?

Track each bike separately and let reminders trigger by that bike's own mileage, ride hours, or date rather than relying on memory. When rides import automatically and sort to the right bike, the mileage stays accurate and the right bike tells you when it's due.

Maintenance

A Bike Maintenance Schedule That Actually Sticks

Most maintenance doesn't get skipped because it's hard. It gets skipped because nobody remembered it was due. The fix isn't discipline. It's tracking the right thing by the right measure, per bike, with intervals that come from the people who actually publish them.

Updated July 6, 2026

Miles, hours, or calendar: pick the right clock

The mistake is putting everything on one schedule. Different parts wear on different clocks:

By distance or ride hours: chain lube, chain wear, tire wear, drivetrain cleaning. These track how far and how long you actually ride.
By calendar: sealant top-ups, hydraulic brake and fork fluid, cable degradation. These age whether the bike moves or not.

A schedule that lets you set each task by the clock that fits it will be right far more often than "I service everything every spring."

A baseline schedule

Adjust for conditions (rain, dust, and big mileage shorten everything), but this is a sane starting point, with the source behind each interval:

Task	Interval	Clock
Clean & lube chain	100–200 mi for drip lubes, per Finish Line and SILCA; ~300 mi per hot-wax treatment	Distance
Check chain wear	Every few hundred miles	Distance
Replace chain	0.5% wear for 11/12-speed, 0.75% for 10-speed and below, per Park Tool (SRAM rates its chains to 0.8%)	Wear gauge
Refresh tubeless sealant	Every 2–6 months; Stan's says check quarterly	Calendar
Brake bleed	Yearly for DOT fluid, every 2 years for mineral oil, per SRAM; Shimano says when the oil discolors or lever feel changes	Calendar / feel
Suspension service (MTB)	Lower legs and air can at 50 hrs per RockShox; Fox full service at 125 hrs or yearly	Ride hours
Full drivetrain clean	Monthly in season	Calendar

Why the chain is the one to never miss

A chain is cheap; a cassette and chainrings are not. As a chain wears it elongates, and a worn chain grinds those expensive parts down to match it. Replace the chain on time, around 0.5% elongation on a wear gauge for modern 11- and 12-speed drivetrains per Park Tool, and the rest of the drivetrain lasts far longer. Miss it, and you're replacing everything at once. Zero Friction Cycling's wear testing puts numbers on the stakes: riders who let chains run long typically burn through several chains, multiple cassettes, and a set of chainrings over 30,000 km, while riders on a disciplined wax rotation covered the same distance without replacing a single drivetrain component.

The lubricant matters more than most riders think, and this is one place the testing is genuinely rigorous. The original Friction Facts efficiency tests measured 55 lubricants under load, and Zero Friction Cycling's 5,000 km wear protocol ranks them by how fast they grind a chain down. The consistent winner is wax: SILCA's published data claims up to 8 watts saved versus slower lubes and chain life up to 25,000 km with hot-melt waxing. The tradeoff is discipline, since wax wants a clean chain and a roughly 300 mile re-treatment rhythm.

The multi-bike problem

One bike, you can mostly keep in your head. Three or four (road, gravel, MTB, maybe a track bike) and memory falls apart fast. Each rides different mileage, in different conditions, on different clocks. The road bike's chain is due while the gravel bike's sealant has gone dry and the MTB needs a lower-leg service nobody's counting hours toward.

This is exactly where a log plus reminders earns its keep: each bike accrues its own mileage and ride hours, each task counts down on its own clock, and the bike tells you when it's due instead of you trying to remember.

Sources

Park Tool: When to Replace a Chain on a Bicycle. The 0.5% / 0.75% / 1% replacement thresholds by drivetrain.
Zero Friction Cycling: Lubricant Testing. Adam Kerin's 5,000 km wear protocol, lube longevity data, and drivetrain cost economics; see also the Chain Maintenance Guide (PDF).
CeramicSpeed / Friction Facts: Chain Lube Efficiency Tests. The original 55-lubricant friction study.
SILCA: Secret Chain Blend and Super Secret Chain Lube. Published watt savings, re-application intervals, and chain-life claims for hot and drip wax.
SRAM / RockShox: Service Interval Chart (PDF). The official 50 / 100 / 200 hour suspension intervals and brake bleed schedule.
FOX: Service Guidance. The 125-hour or yearly full factory service recommendation.
SRAM: Brake Service Guide. Annual DOT bleeds, two-year mineral oil bleeds, and pad wear limits.
Stan's NoTubes: Sealant Support. Sealant life of 2 to 6 months and the quarterly check recommendation.

Let each bike tell you when it's due

Velo Garage keeps a service log and ride history on one timeline, with reminders by date, mileage, or ride hours. Rides import from Strava, Wahoo, intervals.icu, and Apple Health and sort to the right bike automatically, so the mileage that drives those reminders stays accurate without you logging a thing.