How often should I clean and lube my bike chain?

For wet or drip lubes, clean and re-lube roughly every 100-200 miles or whenever the chain looks dirty or sounds dry. Wax-based systems often go longer between applications but want a cleaner chain to start. Riding in rain, dust, or grit shortens all of these intervals.

When should I replace my bike chain?

Replace the chain when a chain-wear gauge reads about 0.5% elongation for most modern drivetrains (0.75% for older or wider chains). 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.

Updated June 30, 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:

Task	Interval	Clock
Clean & lube chain	100–200 mi (sooner if wet/gritty)	Distance
Check chain wear	Every few hundred miles	Distance
Replace chain	At ~0.5% wear (modern drivetrains)	Wear gauge
Refresh tubeless sealant	Every 2–4 months	Calendar
Brake bleed	~Annually, or when lever feels spongy	Calendar / feel
Suspension lower-leg service (MTB)	~50 ride hours	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 most modern drivetrains — and the rest of the drivetrain lasts far longer. Miss it, and you're replacing everything at once.

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.

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 — and 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.