off-season bike maintenance

One of the requirements of the Anchor House Ride is that riders must turn in a mechanics checklist proving that someone has looked at the bike and made sure it's equal to the rigors of the ride (there's no such requirement of the riders). While I object to having to have someone else oversee my bike (it's a point of pride with me that I wrench my own ride), it turns out that the checklist is a good one for keeping up with maintenance. In the season when there's not much riding (such as today, when cold weather is comin' on, and it's raining fairly sternly - and there's a chance of show tonight), I plan to break the bike down to parts and do all the maintenance and upkeep that will keep it rolling during the year.

So today, I began. The tasks I took on today were pedals, cranks, and bottom bracket (the dingus in the frame that spins when you turn the pedals and cranks); the rear dérailleur ; and the saddle and post. Here's what I did and what I learned:

• The torque specification on the bottom bracket is fussy: too tight, and you can ruin the bracket (cheap) and/or the frame (NOT cheap), too loose and you get the most annoying clicking when you pedal (don't ask how I learned that). My torque wrench only registers in one direction... but I learned (when looking for something else) that the torque wrench can be disassembed and reassembled to register the other way. This is important because one side of most bottom brackets has reverse threads. My torque wrench is now marked so I know which way the torque registers.

I disassembled the cranks, took out the bottom bracket and looked inside. Some bottom brackets collect water and road mung, but this one was remarkably clean. I re-greased (black engine grease; see below) and re-assembled.
The rear dérailleur has two little follow-wheels around which the chain goes; they were filthy with grease and road junk. I cleaned them off, and then made almost every mistake one can make reassembling:

• There's an upper and a lower wheel. They have different-sized bolts for axles (which is obvious) and different sized washer bearings (which is not). The larger-holed washers will fit on the smaller bolt; the opposite is not true.
  
• The lower wheel has a directional marking, and it's not intuitive which way it goes;
  
• Nor is the chain routing intuitive. Luckily, the correction only requires removing the two axle bolts.
  
• Disassembling and reassembling the dérailleur affects the cable adjustment.
  

The key issue with the saddle is the seatpost. My bike's frame is titanium, which has a property of galling - sticking to itself or other metals under high friction, such as when tightening a bolt into a thread, or tightening a seatpost into a titanium seat tube. The best way, apparently, to avoid this is by the use of Ti-Prep (I've seen it referred to in industries other than bicycle manufacture as the best stuff for avoiding titanium galling). So the real purpose for this disassemble is to make sure that the seatpost still loosens. While I was there, I made sure the saddle was still at the correct height, and I greased all the bolts. (Greasing bolts is common in bicycle assembly, and there are a number of favorite concoctions to use. I use white grease most of the time, and beeswax when the bolt or screw in question will be somewhat loose, but should not move, such as a limit screw on a dérailleur.)
In the near future, I plan to do the following:

• Put on new brake shoes, and adjust the toe-in and fit of the brakes;
  
• Disassemble the headset/fork/handlebar assembly, and re-grease the bearings;
  
• Move the brake-shifter controls a little higher on the handlebars;
  
• Install a new cable guide under the bottom bracket.
  

All these things will affect the cables, so I'll wait until I'm ready to replace them, as well. Cable replacement usually requires additional adjustment(s) one to three days after the installation due to "cable stretch" (which is really housing shrinkage - that cable is steel; do you really think it will stretch under the pressures of bike brakes and derailleurs?), so I'll hold off until I don't plan to ride for a few days to do that. (However, I do the maintenance in the unheated garage. It stays above freezing in there... but sometimes not by much. So there's an incentive to do this stuff before there are icicles hangin' from the eaves.)