Taking a bike out of storage

[Joey Shabadoo]

Tomorrow I plan to dig my Tricross out of the shed and give it a once over before taking it out again. The last time I rode it was August 2017 and it's been hanging, neglected, in my shed since. I always took pretty good care of it - regular cleaning, re-lube chain periodically etc so what should I pay attention to? Without taking it off the wall I can see the tyres are flat and giving the cantilever brakes a tug, the rear ones have slackened off.

What should I be checking? Will I need to re-index the gears?

 

[Drago]

Brakes, Electrics (if it has any lights), Steering, Transmission, Chain, Oil, Pressures.

 

[derrick]

Tyres.

 

[classic33]

It still fits you. Making any fine adjustments needed.

 

[Spiderweb]

Can’t believe you haven’t ridden the Tricross for almost 2 years, fab bike, I love mine.
Check the tyres haven’t started to crack/perish. Check indexing, your rear derailleur barrel adjuster may need a quarter turn anti clockwise. Check brake adjustment. Clean chain, a rag sprayed with WD40, GT85 or similar will do to wipe the chain down, lube everything as required. Clean and polish and fall back in love with that fantastic bike.

Post pictures here so we can see your lovely work.

 

[silva]

Last time I took out a bike of storage I discovered some of the pin ends of KMC's Z1X INOX (so called stainless steel) were brown. Turned out (KMC admitted after some communication) they weren't stainless.
What's a chains strength worth: the weakest part. And it was proved a second time in winter, apparently the plates and rollers withstanded the road salt, the pens didn't and the evening of the same day as the mornings road salt, the chain just felt off while riding slowly hobbling over stones, due to a pin corroded worse enough to have no mushroom part anymore.
So I decided to replace the chain from the stored bike despite it was nearly unused by a same one (can't just throw away what I bought new) but put the chain thick in the oil. That's now almost 2 years ago and still no brown. Prevention saves days. Also, I stored the bike upside down, to have no pressure on the rubber of the tires even if empty, and a cover over it. Time will tell if that will have made a difference for deflated mounted tires.
What I noticed is that the rubber of unmounted tires seems to degrade faster than the rubber of mounted and used tires. Maybe rubber needs to stretch / contract regularly to maintain its elasticity.
I now store spare tires in the base room, cold and not too dry, seems to make a difference.

 

[Joey Shabadoo]

Not much needed in the end - air in the tyres, tweak the brakes and off I went. The benefits of maintaining the bike regularly before putting it away I suppose.

https://www.cyclechat.net/threads/your-ride-today.173254/post-5665644