No 1: Take good care of your chain

When your chain is ready for lubricating resist the urge to quickly drench it in a high quality lubricant. If you want to preserve the life of your drive train you should firstly remove as much dust, dirt as you can from your chain – simply grip the chain with a cloth and wipe backwards and forwards – turning the pedals in order to speed up this process can be hazardous, particularly on a bike with a fixed wheel!. When you can clearly see all the individual links of your chain you can put some fresh oil onto all of the pivot points. Leave it to stand for a couple of hours in order for the oil to run into the roller pins – then wipe the excess oil off the outside plates of the chain.

If you just keep putting new oil on top of the old you will create a very effective grinding paste that will eat away at your cassette, chain, chainrings and jockey wheels.