This guest post on bike maintenance is by Patrick Philips. If you would like to write a piece for the RIBike blog, let us know! We’d love to work with you!
Learning to care for your bike is something that we tend to learn the hard way, and usually involves incurring costly repair and service costs because of a degree of negligence on our part. The interesting thing is; you don’t have to be a professional cyclist to know how to take care of your bike the correct way. And the best part is that there are many resources out there that can help you maintain your bike without having to spend money on quarterly services.
Luckily in this day and age, we have the advantage of having technology on our side. The days of having to sift through bike manuals to find useful tips and information are behind us, and accessing key information online has been a vital part of making bike maintenance more efficient and easier.
Apps have become extremely important tools to aid cyclists over the last 5 years. Strava, one of the most downloaded apps in the world has helped raise the profile of bicycling worldwide. And Mac World recently reported that the app will be 1 of 19 third-party apps that is available to download on the Apple Watch. [RIBIKE: Come to the New England Bike Walk Summit on September 24 to hear RIBike Program Director Alex Krogh-Grabbe talk about Strava and other technologies used for measuring where and how many people bike]
The health and fitness and sports sections of the app industry are booming with a total of 5% of the market share according to Statista. However, while that may not initially sound like a significant slice of the pie it is if you take into account that gaming commands a 21% share and is the industry leader by some distance. The rise in app sales year-on-year is accounted for by the continual increase in global smartphone usage, which is expected to reach 25% by 2016 detailed in a report published by the company that developed gaming portal Spin Genie.
Listing why apps can help you is one thing, but what apps have a proven track record of helping cyclist maintain their bikes? Read on to find out…
- Bike Doctor – This app comes highly recommended and usually finds itself at the top of most online lists. Bike Doctor has a comprehensive list of tips and tricks to keep your bike in tip-top shape regardless of whether it’s summer or winter. All guides come with visual tutorials from industry professionals, and the step-by-step guides are extremely easy to follow.
- Bike Repair – Many people say that one of the things that makes a true cyclists is the ability to be able to fix their bike in moments of uncertainty. Having Bike Repair on your phone is “like having a mechanic in your pocket.” It has extensive guides, photo books, step-by-step processes and “solutions to common problems” for cyclists.
- Easy Bike Repair – Heralded as the “most detailed bike repair manual in the App Store,’ this app has probably the most in-depth pictorial step-by-step guides out of all the apps we’ve covered in this article. Easy Bike Repair is split into the following sections: Bike Anatomy, Bike Fitting, Maintenance, Problem, Repair and Tools.
[RIBIKE: Whenever we have questions about bike maintenance, we always go to our friends at Recycle-a-Bike or our local bike shops.]