Racing is hard on bicycles. Particularly off-road racing.
There were nights before big mountain bike races when a teenaged me would pull all the pulleys off my derailleur, carefully clean them with a toothbrush, regrease, then reinstall. I’d flick them when finished and smile at the watts I’d maybe saved, though I had no power meter to measure them, then move on to replacing a shift cable, because we had cables, and I grew up in muddy Vermont where they needed replacing every few weeks. My dad would tell me not to work on my bike the night before a race but I was 15, so I ignored him.
These days, I’m the one telling teenagers to get their gear in order weeks, not nights, away from their races. Some of them even listen, very occasionally. The group I coach has their first cross country race in just under a week, the Cactus Cup, Northeast of Phoenix, Arizona. As the window for ordering new parts and getting them installed before that race slowly closed, I sent an email to the team reminding them of this fact, along with a list of things to check on their own bikes before it’s too late. It was very much a do-as-I-say, not-as-I-did kind of email.
After a bit of back and forth with Dave Rome, we decided that the email, lightly edited with some add-ons for gravel racing, would make a handy story. It’s a pre-event checklist but also just a beginning-of-the-season checklist, suitable for any bike that's going to see dirt. I’ve added some other bits I’ve picked up in 20-something years of cross-country and gravel racing, too. I’m sure there’s plenty I’ve forgotten, which is why we have a comments section.
If you’re a pro mechanic, you don’t need this, and you may instead want riders to read this. But if you’re not, and you’re sitting there with a gravel or mountain bike event in a few weeks wondering whether your gear is ready to go, I hope it’s helpful.
A mechanical checklist before your first race day (or just riding trip away):
Brakes are helpful for stopping
✅ Do your brakes need a bleed? Is one lever pulling farther than the other? Does the lever feel squishy? Does the lever feel change with heat or after transporting your bike? It shouldn’t.
✅ Pads. How much brake pad is left? Winter does a number on pads. Peek in there and check.
✅ Do your brakes squeal like a banshee or prevent you from locking a wheel? Something is wrong. Most likely, the pads (and possibly the rotors) are contaminated. You need new pads, rotors may need to be replaced, too.
Jumping gears steal your power
✅ If you have mechanical shifting, when was the last time you replaced cables and/or housing? If the thumb shifter (push to a larger cog) is hard to push, you probably need new cables at the very least. This is one of those things that degrades over time so you may not notice.
✅ If shifting to a smaller cog (harder gear) is sluggish, or shifts are inconsistent, then you probably also need new cables.
✅ Do you have intermittent issues with wireless shifting? Head to a shop. Intermittent is a bad word in the middle of a race.
✅ Replace your AXS shifter batteries. They are little coin cells like a watch. If you do this now, you’re likely good to go for the whole season.
✅ Check your chain for wear (using a chain checker). If you replace the chain, be sure to test it before your event, including with some high-power sprints. Sometimes a new chain won’t work with an old, worn cassette. You'll notice it jumping under load.
✅ Check cassette for wear. The teeth shouldn’t look like curved shark fins. If you let the chain get too worn, it may have taken the cassette down with it. Replace both. You’ll also likely need a new chainring (especially if it’s a MTB) if this is the case.
✅ Check and fix derailleur hanger alignment. This is a common issue. If your shifting is generally pretty good but skips or makes noise in one or two gears, that's a good indication that hanger alignment is off.
Smooth suspension is fast
This is more relevant to XC than gravel, obviously.
✅ Good, tuned suspension makes you faster immediately.
✅ Inspect your fork and rear shock. Is there oil coming out? Are there any weird suction-like noises? If yes, you've likely ignored the suggested service intervals and it's past time that you swing by a shop for inspection.
✅ Get oil + seals done with a shop. Suspension brands recommend having this done every 50 hours of riding as preventative maintenance (ha ha nobody does this except maybe Dave Rome). You should do this once per season, at least. When you do it, you’ll wonder why you didn’t do it earlier, it makes a MASSIVE difference in control/descending speed/traction.
✅ Spend some time on suspension setup, getting correct sag and tuning compression and rebound damping. You can find setup guides on the web site for your fork and shock manufacturer.
Did we do a good job with this story?
