Here’s a recap of these 10 common mountain bike maintenance mistakes.

1. Over-tightening bolts: If you’re worried about your bars or seatpost slipping, but don’t want to make this mistake, simply apply some sort of fiber grip paste to the contact areas of the clamp.
2. Using worn-out Allen keys: Just don’t do it. Worn out Allen keys can cause serious damage to your bolts, so make sure you keep an eye on the condition of your tools.
3. Over-spraying lube: Again, just don’t do it. Instead be really careful when spraying lube on your chain, if any gets on your disc brake rotor, you can be in serious trouble.
4. Internal cable routing: Anyone who has a bike with internal cable routing has experienced this headache. But there are a number of crafty hacks to help you retain your sanity next time you need to change your cables.

5. Not greasing pedal axles: We regularly see people struggling to remove their pedals from their bike. To avoid this and save your knuckles, lightly grease your pedal axles before fitting them on your bike.

6. Washing your bike upside down: You really want to avoid this whenever possible. But if you are going to do this, make sure you don’t spray water near your headset.
7. Forgetting your order of assembly: When removing any parts from your bike, lay them on your work bench in the order you removed them from your bike.

8. Stiff axles: People often struggle to fit their axles back into their wheels, especially if they are maxles. Make sure you regularly clean and grease your axles as you would with any other part on your bike.

9. Using the wrong grease: Before applying grease or lubrication to any part of your bike, make sure it’s fit for purpose. The lubricant you want for your suspension is not going to be the same as for other parts of your bike.

10. Poorly adjusted limit screws: If your gears have stopped working smoothly, always use the barrel adjustor before you change the settings on your limit screws.