The bike “tune-up” is bullshit (and other relics of yesteryear…)

I’m going to make this post a bit like a Quentin Tarantino film and begin with the conclusion: If your bicycle is from the 2010s or newer, don’t get a tune up this season. The idea bikes need to be aligned to some specific set of tolerances by a master mechanic with a long beard dawning a stethoscope and a shop apron is a misnomer in the modern era. Instead, the bicycle tune up is a relic from yesteryear that has been unnecessarily carried forward without much first principles rhyme or reason. Before I go on, do not misread, this doesn’t mean bikes don’t require wrenching. They do. They just don’t require ‘tuning’ the way most people think of bike tuning (and more importantly, bike shops charge for “bike tuning”). Am I debating semantics? Lets dive in…

For those who don’t know, I’ve been turning wrenches since the Clinton administration was in the White House and the Y2K bug was atop everyone’s mind. From then to now I’ve worked in countless bike shops as a mechanic, been a self-supported pro level racer, a professional product tester giving feedback to large companies like Rockshox, SRAM, Fox and Transition and have dedicated silly amounts of time becoming intimately acquainted with all things technology on two wheels. My expertise on dirt is best reflected in more recent years by my YouTube channel which has been very positively received. I mention my wrench twiddling CV only to add a little bit of validity to what I’m going to pen (keyboard?) in the following paragraphs.

To validate my hypothesis that the bike tune up is bullshit, the first thing I did was go to a number of bike shop websites to see what a “tune up” consists of these days. Though this does range shop to shop the below screenshot is a pretty good “average” of what you get from the 7 or so shop sites I visited. To add, the various tiers of tuning avalaible and the costs are also pretty standard across the sample size (at least for a blog post). For obvious reasons, I’m leaving names out.

Let me break the tasks in the “bronze” category so everyone can follow along here…

1. Wipe frame down: Requires zero skill except for having opposable thumbs (IE Tucker can’t do this step) 5 minutes max
2. Drivetrain adjustment with hanger alignment: The idea that every bike will need the hanger aligned and derailleur adjusted is rubbish. These days I find the derailleur cage often bends before the hanger which will require a replacement of the cage (if anything) and cables rarely stretch after their initial bed in period. Point is, you may or may not need this. 5-10 minutes
3. Brake adjustments: Now that everything is hydraulic disc based, there is very little adjusting to do. The mechanic might have to center the caliper but there is no “adjusting” of the system unless you need a bleed. I often do this at the top of a race run if I see a rub – that should tell you how hard it is. 5 minutes
4. Wheel truing: It often takes me longer to take the wheels off than to turn a spoke wrench on a handful of spokes to get the wheels “true”. Generally this is not required like it was when we were running rim brakes. If it is 5-10 minutes.
5. Lubricate chain, cable and housing: Anyone can do this. No skill required. If you can’t do these things mountain biking might not be for you. 5 minutes max
6. Inspect and adjust hubs, bottom bracket, headset and dropper post: Generally none of these are going to require any adjustment. For instance, hubs don’t even have bearing preload adjustments anymore and figuring out their condition is about a 15 second exercise. 5 minutes
7. Safety check: I sincerely doubt a mechanic is going through a bike bolt by bolt to check for tightness. That said, every bike shop mechanic will give a solid once over of a bike to make sure the fork isn’t on backwards and the handlebar isn’t cracked. Glance

Total Time ~30 minutes if all of those tasks are in fact required – that equates to $240/hr. Ouch. We also can’t overlook the fact that many bikes will be brought in freshly washed, well lubricated with little need for any of the above tasks in the first place. How does that work? Is it just a free $120 to the shop for what is essentially an inspection?

As you move through the tune up tiers, its more of the same. A lot of faux rigmarole for very little of on-dirt value. That said, I recognize the ‘set and setting’ placebo value. IE, you bring your bike into the fancy place to get the fancy work and by God when you got it back it friggin worked better! This may be because the shop did something awesome, but the power of placebo can’t be ignored.

Does all this mean bikes don’t need wrenching? Absolutely not. Lets look to the automotive industry for some insights…

Any vehicle worth turning a wrench on since fuel injection became a thing is far more binary and a lot less analog. What in the hell am I talking about? Well, 50 years ago when your car had a carburetor and valves that could be adjusted there was a real need for “tuning”. Depending on time of year, cleanliness of the parts, what level of wear everything was at etc. the vehicle could go into a shop running one way and come out running very much a different way all without replacing much more than the engine oil. Nowadays you’d get laughed out of a shop if you go “hey, I’m just looking for a tune up for my 2015 GMC 2500HD”.

Instead, as most people know, when you bring in your vehicle to a good auto/diesel shop a mechanic will inspect the vehicle, look at service records, and give you a list of things that need to be done either for preventative reasons or because things are in fact starting to fail. This is what I call “replacement & fluid wrenching”. There is literally no tuning and outside of mileage based fluid changes, its all about identifying what needs to be replaced, then taking that thing off and putting a new thing in its place.

What does this mean for cycling? It means we ought to throw the idea of a “tune up” in the trashcan because the dirty little secret is we are doing things just like the automotive industry. Anyone can wash their bike, lube the chain, lube your one or two cables and call it a day. If you really want to be crazy, maybe spend some time with a zip tie (or old film negatives) and clean your fork seals, then put the bike at a “12-o’clock” angle for 3-4 minutes so the lower oil bath can lubricate said seals. That’s it. That’s your modern “tune up”.

If the bike isn’t working right, there is a creak, something is loose, its not shifting well, something sounds bad, its no longer performing like you want, the brakes have no power, bla bla bla, its time to take it into a bike shop but my suggestion is to have them do an inspection, not a tune up. Like going to the doctor, the more information you can give them the better the chance they can fix it and the likelihood “everything needs to be fiddled with” is a misnomer. Getting your bike in tip top shape should be more “a la carte” not some “combo special” where you order things you don’t even like eating.

If you feel like a newbie and want your bike in tip top shape ahead of next riding season, use this as a guide when bringing the bike in…

1. “Please inspect the bike. I’ll happily pay for this. I want to know what needs replacing such as my chain, brake pads, rotors, cassette, cables/housing, and/or headset/bottom bracket.” A good mechanic can tell you this in about 15 minutes of looking at a bike and this will make for a much more informed service session. I’d much rather spend $30 on knowing what I’m up against that $120 on a bunch of services I don’t need.
2. “Can you look at my suspension? I’d like to consider doing lowers and an air can service”. This is one thing you pay a bit of real money for but is worth the cash for two reasons. First, it makes your bike’s boingers ride like new. Second, if you don’t do this you can have premature wear from these very expensive to replace bits. My rule of thumb is to do suspension service roughly every 50 rides or for most riders once per year. Also, when I say “suspension service” I really mean the lubrication bath in the lowers and air can, not rebuilding the damper unless it has failed. I also wouldn’t let a shop talk me into damper rebuilds. They rarely fail due to use and more commonly fail due to improper assembly from the factory (and are a warranty claim).
3. “My bike is creaking/feels loose here/is not shifting well/etc” If the bike is doing anything not so well, just tell them about this too and have them fix that one thing. IE, it doesn’t seem to be shifting well. Can you fix this?

Bike shop employees or owners reading this – I am not trying to take business out of your hands at all. What I am suggesting is the time a mechanic is billing to the customer ought to be meaningful, honest, transparent and above all else – valuable. Nothing is for free, but the idea you are billing a customer for a derailleur adjustment when the derailleur doesn’t need adjusting is crazy (as is the case in a “tune up”). Before I end this part of the diatribe, I wanted to give a shout out to University Bicycles in Boulder, CO. They specifically note that they no longer do tune ups largely because they have a similar philosophy to my own.

This brings me to the conclusion, which in this case is a question. What other relics of yesteryear are we leaning into greater costs to ourselves either in the form of time or money (or both)? The first idea that came to my head is the whacky way medicine works. Why do I need to go through the rigmarole of the waiting room, then the second waiting room for my blood pressure and heart rate to get checked by a nurse, then another nurse, then finally the doctor who decides to run a strep test when all of this could have been facilitated by literally a test a pharmacist (or myself) could administer? The entire medical “script” and narrative is often akin to the “bike tune up”…but on appears a bazillion times worse with few incentives in place to try and fix it.

What do you all have in this vein?