I have two bicycles: an off-road bike (they used to call them “mountain” bikes) and a sleek road bike. The off-road bike is a bike-tech dinosaur, but it’s as much bike as an out-of-shape 58-year-old guy needs.

I ride it each spring to get my legs back before I begin riding my road bike. The road bike is most assuredly not a dinosaur. If it were a car, it would be a Porsche. It has a carbon-fiber frame, which makes it ridiculously light, and it has 30 speeds to make the most of that lightness. But I need to be in reasonably good riding shape to get the most out of it.

Over the years I have abused the mountain bike. One year I raced it on a soupy trail course, and by the time I hit the finish line, the bike had enough mud stuck to it that it weighed about as much as a Harley-Davidson. These days I ride it along abandoned railroad beds, on dirt roads leading into the hills, and along the river dikes in town. It makes me feel like a little kid again because riding it is so much fun. It’s play. If you’re reading this, chances are you don’t have enough “play” in your life.


The bike suffered a flat tire early in the season last year, so I simply quit riding it and began riding the road bike earlier than usual. This spring, I decided to give the mountain bike a good overhaul. It had several years of grease and grit built up on the front and rear sprockets. The derailleurs needed a good cleaning. New tires and tubes were a must. And the chain required lots of attention.

I have learned I need to take on tasks like this a little at a time. When I try to do too much at once, I wind up rushing to finish the job and skimping on quality work. So I lugged the bike down cellar and removed both wheels. Then, with a rag and a bucket of soapy water, I washed as much dirt and grime as I could from the frame. The next step was to get a can of WD-40 and an old washcloth, cut the cloth into small squares, and wipe away the grease that the soap and water didn’t get.

Yesterday I spent about an hour and a half cleaning the three front chain rings and wiping away all the mucky residue, sometimes using a narrow strip of the washcloth like dental floss to make sure every tooth on every chainring was clean. Then I cleaned the front wheel—hub, spokes and rim—and mounted a new tire and tube on it. And then I mounted the wheel on the front fork.

But now the easy work is done. The derailleurs require lots of attention, because they are intricate assemblies of moving parts where a patina of grit builds up. Some places require a toothbrush to reach: a toothbrush whose head has been cut to a quarter of its normal size to reach into the guts of the derailleurs.

The rear sprocket is a caked with black grime, and cleaning it is going to be messy. Cleaning and lubricating the chain will be a link-by-link proposition. But getting the derailleurs and chain clean is vital because those parts are the bicycle’s drive train. Clean components ensure smooth gear-shifting, and when you’re climbing some rocky singletrack on an old logging path, legs heavy, lungs burning, the last thing you need to worry about is balky gears.

It’s been dirty work, but fun. The best part is how I’m able to shut off my brain and simply focus on the cleanup. I play music in the background—not too loudly, because I don’t want it to be a distraction.

Once I’m done—I have about three more sessions to go—I’ll put on my helmet and gloves and head out one soon-come April day, feeling another year older and slower at first, and then feeling younger and free as I steer off the road and ride to places where Serious Grownups never go.