Table of Contents
Note
This post is a preliminary companion to the series of posts on bicycle chain wear and maintenance, and posts about bicycles, cycling, bicycle maintenance.
Woody Allen is widely credited on the Web with a comment about directing opera. I saw it in post 1by John Naughton as the quote of the day2 in his Memex 1.1 blog on February 26, 2025:
I don’t know what I’m doing, but my incompetence has never stopped my enthusiasm.
Consumerism and Knowledge
It is not possible to ignore return on investment, shareholder value, corporate governance, planned obsolescence, marketing, consumerism and other aspects of asset management and financial management practices by the managers of bicycle manufacturing firms. It not useful to use moral words like “avarice”. Things that are not manufactured cannot be bought or used. Bikes, parts, components, accessories and other products are consumer products, built to standards of functionality, durability, cost and other economic factors. Bikes require attention of mechanics and maintenance that most bike owners do not have the knowledge or experience to provide. I have wondered about:
- What is “quality” in a bicycle?
- How much knowledge does a user need about cleaning and maintenance?
- What amount of time and effort should go into bike maintenance?
Knowledge about Bicycles
Opinions, Science and Facts
Memory, common sense, consensus, evidence
I have tried to learn about materials, lubricants, bicycle manufacturing and maintenance. I am skeptical of “common sense” and “well-known” ideas. I have tried to avoid following any particular cultural consensus reality or other belief based in part on observation and other sensory experience as recalled in memory, and based on stories about the causes of things and events.
Many people are aware that some kinds of facts are based on evidence of things that few or no human beings have experienced or perceived without tools. The British Royal Society’s motto, adopted in the 17th century, Nullius in verba, is Latin for “Take nobody’s word for it”.3 It comes from the Roman historian Horace’s Epistles where he compares himself to a gladiator who, having retired, is free from control. reflecting the view of 17th century pioneers in science that common sense, common knowledge, religious belief and other ways of evaluating evidence were inferior to reliable physical evidence.
There has been an ongoing discussion in philosophy about what science can prove or disprove. According to Karl Popper (1934) a theory in the empirical sciences can never be proven, but it can be falsified, meaning that it can (and should) be scrutinized with decisive experiments. Popper was opposed to the classical account of knowledge, which he replaced with critical rationalism. According to Thomas Kuhn (1962) scientific fields undergo periodic “paradigm shifts” rather than solely progressing in a linear and continuous way, and that these paradigm shifts open up new approaches to understanding what scientists would never have considered valid before; and that the notion of scientific truth, at any given moment, cannot be established solely by objective criteria but is defined by a consensus of a scientific community.
There has been tension between the ideas of science and knowledge and political and social ideas about freedom and democracy in the 20th and 21st centuries. This has played out in real conflicts about decisions about science – the 21st century attacks by populists on “elitists” over vaccinations and other measures to control the transmission of the Covid-19 viruses are an example. In 2024 the effects of the internet were discussed in a public-facing article by Brian Leiter, “Free Speech on the Internet: The Crisis of Epistemic Authority” in the journal Daedelus.
Some expressions became popular with American workers and journalists, and many consumers:
- there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch (“TANSTAFL”) 4later adopted by the economist Milton Friedman as a libertarian and anarcho-capitalist slogan implying “you get what you pay for” as discussed at the Quote Investigator’s site’s page 2016/08/27 was said by working people about bars that offer a free lunch to patrons who buy alcohol (as remembered by the Speculative Fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein, and cyclists who read mid-20th century SF). It is useful to understand TANSTAFL to mean “it is what it is“, and
- kludge.
“Wise Crowds”
Professional and competitive riders, working people who use bikes, commuters, people who ride for physical exercise, recreational riders, mechanics, business people, engineers, chemists and physicists have different ideas about what is good or useful.
The concept of a “wise crowd” is a statistical fact, but it does not mean that the opinions of a majority of people with opinions can be condensed to a crowd view of the facts about a technical idea. Is there a scientific consensus about bicycle chains? People who sell, fix, buy or ride bicycles do not assess facts the same way. Can a consensus be found using internet searching? Published material on the internet on the subject disagrees about a lot.
Experts
In commenting on material on the Internet, Tom Nichols, in his book, The Death of Expertise 5witty and quotable, but limited. It is not a book about cycling.). Tom Nichols refers to SF writer Ted Sturgeon’s 1956 Law, “ninety percent of everything is crap” to make a point about search services:
The sheer size and volume of the Internet, and the inability to separate meaningful knowledge from random noise, means that good information will always be swamped by lousy data and weird detours. Worse, there’s no way of keeping up with it all …
….
… finding [good] information means plowing through a blizzard of useless or misleading information posted by everyone from …
Tom Nichols, The Death of Expertise, Oxford University Press, New York, 2017, at pp. 107-108
Nichols complained that the internet undermines the epistemic authority of persons who have expertise, but did discuss why the internet has facilitated the publication of falsehoods and unfounded beliefs. Nichols was complaining about the “death” of deference to expertise in his field of expertise – international relations – a specialized and unruly area, and to populist resistance to the opinions of experts and other “elites”.
Published Information
The bicycle was marketed and maintained in cultures with established methods of publishing information in print on paper. Information about materials, designs, mass production and marketing was not necessarily written down, or published. The knowledge, skills and resources to write or create content and to publish and distribute newspapers, magazines, books, web pages and videos were governed by technical and economic factors. Some papers and books about the history and uses of bicycles have been written by historians, social scientist and engineers. These can be found in the archives of academic journals and in academic libraries, with effort
Some books about bicycle repair and maintenance were published and available from book stores and libraries. Some were written by mechanics or journalists who had established themselves in cycling magazines. Many books went out of print; few were added to library collections and many were removed from library collections. Few were digitized and published online.
Only a fraction of the knowledge of designers, makers, mechanics, professional riders, cycling fans and non-professional riders was published. Much that was published was published by journalists in periodicals. Much was transient information, of little use even within days. Journalism recorded some knowledge about building and maintaining bicycles.
Jan Heine, the proprietor of René Herse Cycles (formerly Compass Cycles) and Bicycle Quarterly has studied written about French bikes made 1935-1970. He regarded such French bikes, including René Herse, bikes as good examples of all-road bicycles. He has published several books on 20th century bike building in France and Japan, most recently, The All-Road Bicycle Revolution (2021) which discusses, according to its blurb:
“how all-road bikes work and what is important when choosing one. A must-read for cyclists interested in the technology of their bikes, and for every cyclist contemplating his or her next bike purchase.”
It discussed elements of 20th century bike building techniques, and ideas about bikes. It notes that mid-20th century French randonneuse bikes demonstrate that the most recent technology is not necessary to make an efficient bicycle. Jan Heine also writes about modern bikes and gear. His company produces and sells modern tires and repair parts.
Some journalists and writers have produced books about cycling that may circulate in public library collections. For instance, in 2019 Evan Friss’s On Bicycles, A 200 Year History of Cycling in New York City was published by the Columbia University Press.
Some printed books and e-books about maintenance are available. In some instances, the book accompanies or summarizes advice delivered in other media. Examples:
- Lennard Zinn, an experienced mechanic and journalist wrote successful books that are reasonably current, summarizing advice delivered in magazine columns:
- Zinn and the Art of Road Bike Maintenance (VeloPress, 4th edition), was published in 2013. The 5th edition was published October 2023 (distributed by Simon and Schuster). The 6th edition is expected to be published in June 2024;
- The 6th edition, (2018) of Zinn and the Art of Mountain Bike Maintenance is the most recent edition of that book;
- Park Tools, the manufacturer of bike tools, publishes The Big Blue Book of Bicycle Repair. The 4th edition was published in 2019. It is available (2024) as a print book from on line bookstores and bicycle supply stores, and as an ebook for the Amazon Kindle device;
- The producers of the Global Cycling Network web products published GCN’s Essential Road Bike Maintenance in 2024 (sold by direct Web sales from GCN sites).
The Internet
Origins and Limitations
The internet (including the Web) came into being near the end of the 20th century, a century after mass production of safety bicycles and components began. The information about bicycle drive trains published on the internet reflects the knowledge and interests of cyclists and mechanics from 1980 to the early 2020s.
In the early days of the Internet, text had to be typed in to be published online. How much information was ever digitized? What publications were scanned or subjected to OCR with good character recognition? Were copyright issues negotiated? Much scientific and engineering material on internet and the web on materials like steel and lubricants has been copyrighted or is protected by some form of Intellectual Property laws; on the internet it may be gated or pay-walled.
The internet does not “know” about things that no one has tried to publish on the internet. The Internet shares some of the limitations of the publishing industry. Tom Nichols, in his 2017 book, The Death of Expertise, applied Sturgeon’s Law 6SF writer Ted Sturgeon, 1956 “90% of everything is crap” to journalism in 2017:
… many people do not seeks information as much as confirmation, and when they receive information they do not like, they will gravitate to sources they prefer … Today, hundreds of media outlets cater to even the narrowest agendas and biases.
This mindset and the market that services it, creates … a combination of groundless confidence and deep cynicism …
Americans increasingly don’t trust anyone anymore. They view all institutions, including the media, with disdain.
Nichols, The Death of Expertise, cited, pp. 157-158
In terms of communication theory:
….
The early, idealistic view of the Internet proved an illusion. The system went out of balance almost immediately, its spatial reach subverting its temporal depth. Far from alleviating our present-mindedness, the net magnified it.
Innis would not have been surprised. Information in digital form is weightless, its immateriality perfectly suited to instantaneous long-distance communication. It makes newsprint seem like concrete. The infrastructure built for its transmission, from massive data centers to fiber-optic cables to cell towers and Wi-Fi routers, is designed to deliver vast quantities of information as “dynamically” as possible, to use a term favored by network engineers and programmers. The object is always to increase the throughput of data.
The net was a communication system of unprecedented scope: a world wide web that could transmit huge amounts of information across the planet. But unlike traditional broadcast networks, it was also a storage medium of unprecedented depth. It promised to contain, and provide easy access to, the entirety of cultural history …
….
The medium’s technical characteristics have been shaped by commercial interests. The evolution of the Google search engine, for the last quarter century humankind’s most valued epistemic tool, tells the tale. For several years after it was founded in 1998, Google, inspired by the rigor of what its two grad-student founders called “the academic realm,” pursued a simple goal: to find the highest-quality sources of information on any given topic.
….
… In 2010, Google rolled out a revamped search system … that placed enormous new emphasis on the recency, or “freshness,” of the results it delivered. …
The company had come to realize that information, when served up as a commodity for instant consumption, loses value quickly. It gets stale; it rots. The past is far less engaging, and hence monetizable, than the present. To use Google today is to enter not an archive but a bazaar.
The social media companies that began to emerge around the same time as Google were aggressively space-biased from the start. Bringing Innis’s worst fears to pass, they sought to capitalize on “network effects” to build empires of information and establish monopolies of communication.
Nicholas Carr, “The Tyranny of Now”, The New Atlantis (magazine), Winter 2025 issue.
Search Engines
A web search engine sifts content looking for text strings. Searches depend on searchable lines of text, an item title, or the organization of the resource (the identity of an author or publisher, channels, tags, indices etc.). Searches generate lists of links. Some search engine hits are still (in 2024) predominantly text or text with static images. Many pages and videos:
- are direct advertisements for products, or endorsements;
- are low value “reviews”.
Search engines can, with luck or careful queries, find articles that illustrate or explain the history of a technical idea, or adoption of technology by designers, manufacturers, investors, journalists and people who can afford to buy bicycles (and high speed internet), but cannot construct the history.
Search engines may show hits for videos, including YouTube videos but usually not podcasts. For podcasts, a user needs to search for podcast in an podcast index. After getting a good hit, a user needs luck and time to find the moments when a subject will be explained. Searches often miss recorded audio and video material (podcasts, YouTube) .
Reviews can be useful in finding products, but have limited value in evaluating products. It is not possible to find out how the author or publisher has influenced, or has preconceptions. Many reviews reflect personal experience in conditions that are not clearly explained, or quick reactions. The comparisons are between the products which the author or publisher mentions i.e. are limited to as to what is available or known to the writer. The testing, if any, is not scientific and does not assess the actual conditions of use. Many reviews or overviews are catalogues of methods, sometimes narrow, sometimes overly broad. Many make improbable claims about products.
When an internet source or a published book or magazine mentions a person, a company, a product or an idea, internet search can lead to material that can be read and followed up on. This can be an effective way of researching.
Wikipedia
There are criticisms about whether and when Wikipedia provides accurate information on all topics. Wikipedia, notwithstanding many valid criticisms, has an editorial and review process. Wikipedia Articles on bicycles may miss or overlook some details, or lack context, but are basically sound. Wikipedia is reasonably fulsome on several relevant topics.
The Wikipedia page for bicycle chain notes that chain cleaning and lubrication are complicated and controversial:
How best to lubricate a bicycle chain is a commonly debated question among cyclists. Liquid lubricants penetrate to the inside of the links and are not easily displaced, but quickly attract dirt. “Dry” lubricants, often containing wax or Teflon, are transported by an evaporating solvent, and stay cleaner in use. The cardinal rule for long chain life is never to lubricate a dirty chain, as this washes abrasive particles into the rollers. Chains should be cleaned before lubrication. The chain should be wiped dry after the lubricant has had enough time to penetrate the links. An alternative approach is to change the (relatively cheap) chain very frequently; then proper care is less important. Some utility bicycles have fully enclosing chain guards, which virtually eliminate chain wear and maintenance. On recumbent bicycles the chain is often run through tubes to prevent it from picking up dirt, and to keep the cyclist’s leg free from oil and dirt.
Wikipedia (October 2021) on Bicycle Chain
There are many resources reflecting many opinions. Comments in forums often reflect experience, but the amount of experience with the products is not clear. Some comments reflect frustration that the bike industry keeps selling more expensive new bikes and components while bikes are harder to maintain without tools, supplies and knowledge.
Large Platforms
Cory Doctorow writes some SF, and some non-fiction about the internet, information technology and business. He has written about the business practices of the large tech companies including The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation (2023) and Chokepoint Capitalism (2022). He identifies Google search as a leading example of a business strategy, which he names in an unflattering way:
… let’s examine how enshittification works. It’s a three-stage process: first, platforms are good to their users. Then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers. Finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, there is a fourth stage: they die
Cory Doctorow, ‘Enshittification’ is coming for absolutely everything, Financial Times, February 7, 2024
Google Search was once the best Web search service. Once upon a time users believed the Google company when it said it was against evil. The modern Google search tool is full of advertising. Google Search returns now promote “sponsored” content (and recent content). Cory Doctorow on Google search:
Google’s search results are terrible. The top of the page is dominated by spam, scams, and ads. A surprising number of those ads are scams. Sometimes, these are high-stakes scams played out by well-resourced adversaries who stand to make a fortune by tricking Google …
But often these scams are perpetrated by petty grifters who are making a couple bucks at this. These aren’t hyper-resourced, sophisticated attackers. They’re the SEO [search engine optimization] equivalent of script kiddies, and they’re running circles around Google …
Google search is empirically worsening. The SEO industry spends every hour that god sends trying to figure out how to sleaze their way to the top of the search results, and even if Google defeats 99% of these attempts, the 1% that squeak through end up dominating the results page for any consequential query …
….
… Google’s algorithmic failures, which send the worst sites to the top of the heap, have made it impossible for high-quality review sites to compete …
You’ve doubtless encountered these bad review sites. Search for “Best ______ 2024” and the results are a series of near-identical lists, strewn with Amazon affiliate links. Google has endlessly tinkered with its guidelines and algorithmic weights for review sites, and none of it has made a difference. For example, when Google instituted a policy that reviewers should “discuss the benefits and drawbacks of something, based on your own original research,” sites that had previously regurgitated the same lists of the same top ten Amazon bestsellers “peppered their pages with references to a ‘rigorous testing process,’ their ‘lab team,’ subject matter experts ‘they collaborated with,’ and complicated methodologies that seem impressive at a cursory look.”
But … grandiose claims … result in zero in-depth reviews and no published data. Moreover, these claims to rigorous testing materialized within a few days of Google changing its search ranking and said that high rankings would be reserved for sites that did testing.
Cory Doctorow, Pluralisic Blog, February 21,2024
Bruce Schneier and Judith Donath made a similiar point discussing search using “AI” tools built with Large-Language Model (“LLM”) technology:
… [publishing’s] core task is to connect writers to an audience. Publishers work as gatekeepers, filtering candidates and then amplifying the chosen ones. Hoping to be selected, writers shape their work in various ways. This article might be written very differently in an academic publication, for example, and publishing it here entailed pitching an editor, revising multiple drafts for style and focus, and so on.
The internet initially promised to change this process. Anyone could publish anything! But so much was published that finding anything useful grew challenging. It quickly became apparent that the deluge of media made many of the functions that traditional publishers supplied even more necessary.
Technology companies developed automated models to take on this massive task of filtering content, ushering in the era of the algorithmic publisher. The most familiar, and powerful, of these publishers is Google. Its search algorithm is now the web’s omnipotent filter and its most influential amplifier, able to bring millions of eyes to pages it ranks highly, and dooming to obscurity those it ranks low.
In response, a multibillion-dollar industry—search-engine optimization, or SEO—has emerged to cater to Google’s shifting preferences, strategizing new ways for websites to rank higher on search-results pages and thus attain more traffic and lucrative ad impressions.
Unlike human publishers, Google cannot read. It uses proxies, such as incoming links or relevant keywords, to assess the meaning and quality of the billions of pages it indexes. Ideally, Google’s interests align with those of human creators and audiences: People want to find high-quality, relevant material, and the tech giant wants its search engine to be the go-to destination for finding such material. Yet SEO is also used by bad actors who manipulate the system to place undeserving material—often spammy or deceptive—high in search-result rankings. Early search engines relied on keywords; soon, scammers figured out how to invisibly stuff deceptive ones into content, causing their undesirable sites to surface in seemingly unrelated searches. Then Google developed PageRank, which assesses websites based on the number and quality of other sites that link to it. In response, scammers built link farms and spammed comment sections, falsely presenting their trashy pages as authoritative.
Google’s ever-evolving solutions to filter out these deceptions have sometimes warped the style and substance of even legitimate writing. When it was rumored that time spent on a page was a factor in the algorithm’s assessment, writers responded by padding their material, forcing readers to click multiple times to reach the information they wanted. This may be one reason every online recipe seems to feature pages of meandering reminiscences before arriving at the ingredient list.
The arrival of generative-AI tools has introduced a voracious new consumer of writing. Large language models, or LLMs, are trained on massive troves of material—nearly the entire internet in some cases. They digest these data into an immeasurably complex network of probabilities, which enables them to synthesize seemingly new and intelligently created material; to write code, summarize documents, and answer direct questions in ways that can appear human.
These LLMs have begun to disrupt the traditional relationship between writer and reader. Type how to fix broken headlight into a search engine, and it returns a list of links to websites and videos that explain the process. Ask an LLM the same thing and it will just tell you how to do it. Some consumers may see this as an improvement: Why wade through the process of following multiple links to find the answer you seek, when an LLM will neatly summarize the various relevant answers to your query? Tech companies have proposed that these conversational, personalized answers are the future of information-seeking. But this supposed convenience will ultimately come at a huge cost for all of us web users.
Bruce Schneier, Judith Donath, The Rise of Large-Language Model Optimization, April 25, 2024, Schneier on Security
Another factor has been a change in Google’s vision of the scope of its mission in response to the use of AI generated content. An SEO consultant complained in 2024:
You’re facing a future where AI can generate infinite amounts of human-like content. What do you do?
Google’s response was twofold:
- Promote the vague concept of E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness). In practice, this translates to favoring well-known brands and established websites.
- Abandon the mission of indexing everything. Instead, become selective. Very selective.
… Google is no longer trying to index the entire web. … it’s become extremely selective, refusing to index most content. This isn’t about content creators failing to meet some arbitrary standard of quality. … it’s a fundamental change in how Google approaches its role as a search engine.
… Google now seems to operate on a “default to not index” basis. It only includes content in its index when it perceives a genuine need. This decision appears to be based on various factors:
Vincent Schmalbach, July 15, 2024 Google Now Defaults to Not Indexing Your Content
- Extreme content uniqueness: It’s not enough to write about something that isn’t extensively covered. Google seems to require content to be genuinely novel or fill a significant gap in its index.
- Perceived authority: Sites that Google considers highly authoritative in their niche may have more content indexed, but even then, it’s not guaranteed.
- Brand recognition: Well-known brands often see most of their content indexed, while small or unknown bloggers face much stricter selectivity.
- Temporary indexing and de-indexing: In practice, Google often indexes new content quite quickly, likely to avoid missing out on breaking news or important updates. Soon after, Google may de-index the content, and it remains de-indexed thereafter. So getting initially indexed isn’t necessarily a sign that Google considers your content valuable.
This was noted by other commentators:
If this is indeed what Google is up to, then you have to wonder what its leaders have been smoking. Among other things, they’re proposing to build machines that can sensibly assess qualities such as expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness in an online world where just about anything goes. Could someone please take them aside and remind them that a tech company tried something like this way back in 1995 and came unstuck. It was called Yahoo! Remember it?
John Naughton, The Guardian (Observer magazine), Joly 20, 2024, Google’s wrong answer to the threat of AI – stop indexing content
Other Google “services” e.g. YouTube, and most other commercial search platforms share the problems.
Web Sites
Introduction
Web sites discuss aspects of cycling, bicycle maintenance etc. Many have articles or pages on maintaining drive chains. For instance: BikeRadar, June 26, 2022 , Bicycle chains explained.
Sheldon Brown/BTI
Sheldon Brown, a bike mechanic in Boston, and a modern polymath, started writing on the Web by the early 1990s. He had contacts among local riders and shops, and participated in Usenet news groups and other online forums on cycling. Sheldon Brown and his original contributors wrote extensively and collected internet material. The Bicycle Technical Information pages (“BTI”) were a leading online source of information about bicycle repair and bicycles. The pages captured parts of the histories of bicycles and components, manufacturing, repair, touring and riding.
The BTI ages on cycling were hosted by his employer, Harris Cyclery, until it closed in 2021. The BTI pages have been updated since his death in 2008, and continued to be published after Harris Cyclery closed in June 2021 by a community of friends and fans; some topics have been updated or added.
Sheldon Brown admired and promoted Sutherlands Handbook for Bicycle Mechanics by Howard Sutherland, (the 6th and 7th editions are available as of 2022-2024 from Sutherland’s Bicycle Shop Aids in California), and published articles by several authors on technical bicycle repair and maintenance matters.
The BTI pages that mention chains, lubrication and maintenance include:
- an entry on chain in the bicycle glossary;
- a major article on chain maintenance;
- other articles on gears & chains, including the 2002 article Chain Care, Wear and Skipping by the late Jobst Brandt.
Some of the contributors to the BTI pages were engineers and mechanics. Some read speculative (science) fiction, and used folk sayings that had been used in SF (e.g. TANSTAFL, kludge) to describe the experience the realities of riding and fixing bicycles and the results of the financial, organizational and decision making processes of bicycle manufacturers, politicians and traffic engineers.
The BTI pages reflect a perspective on innovations in the bicycle building and selling industries in the 1990s. Some comments on maintaining and lubricating chains on the BTI pages do not hold up (for instance, that riders should not try to remove factory grease from a chain). The BTI pages do not address many maintenance issues arising from innovations, since then, although some pages have been updated. Some scientific research and publications are summarized in Bike Chains, Part 3 in this series, under the headings and subheadings Lubricants: Scientists, Lubricants: Paraffin, and Lubricating a Chain: Academic Research.
Sheldon Brown participated in Usenet Newsgroups including rec.bicycles.tech. He linked to the Frequently Asked Question (“FAQ”) paged.
The BTI site has maintained a link to the Bicycles FAQ page(s) at FAQ.org. (FAQ.org has not migrated to HTTPS, which may affect your attempt to follow the link in the preceding sentence.)
The BTI site has maintained a link to Bicycles, the index page of an archive of Usenet cycling newsgroup posts privately collected,indexed and maintained by Norman Yarvin on his yarchive.net pages.
Jobst Brandt
Jobst Brandt was prolific writer about cycling in Usenet groups. That kind of writing is not being read because it was written in a medium that was largely ephemeral. His Wikipedia entry does not mention:
- Jobst Brandt Ride Bike! by Max Leonard et al. published by Isola Press in 2015, a biography and history of the origins of mountain bike riding in Marin County in northern California;
- The routes and trails out of Redwood City near Palo Alto where Brandt rode bikes and taught mountain bike technique shown in Andy Quant’s video of his visit in early 2025 “Palo Alto | Alpine Dirt | Jobst Ride | La Honda | Bicycle Adventures | Flat Tires | Redwoods |“.
The BTI page Frequently Asked Questions about Bicycles and Bicycling collected and republished information by Jobst Brandt published on BTI .
Favorites
CyclingTips was an online cycling magazine with strong technical coverage. It covered chain maintenance, cleaning, lubrication, chain wear and interviews with modern pioneers of testing lubricants and chains in text articles and audio media. Most CyclingTips text material was removed from the Internet – when the new publisher (the hedge fund that controlled the “Outside” family of magazines and online content) made changes in 2022 .
CyclingTips published some “endless FAQ” articles (detailed articles, periodically revised) on some components and issues of maintaining modern bicycle, but these are not online after the new publisher deleted content:
| Title, or Component or issue | Date | Endless, Revised |
| Seeking the holy grail: A fast chain lube that saves you money | March 2018 | |
| Disc Brakes | May 2018 | August 2019 |
| Tubeless Tires | 2019 | October 2021 |
| Finding the best bicycle chain: What over 3,000 hours of testing revealed | December 2019 | |
| Waxing Chains | August 2020 | March 2021 |
CyclingTips NerdAlert podcast discussed technical and repair issues. The panelists often mentioned the cycling industry’s history of selling products that have drawbacks and flaws. Most of this content, also, was unpublished under the new management; or move behind the “Outside” app paywall. Discussions of chain maintenance:
- The podcast in Nerd Alert series in August 2021 on chain lube testing, Updated; March 16, 2022, “Finding the best chain lube for your needs”.
Escape Collective began to produce content in March 2023. Many CyclingTipswriters and podcast panelists joined Escape Collective.
Discussions of chain wear on the internet often address readers and viewers interested in other issues:
- speed in races
- on different kinds of bicycles
- under different conditions, and
- durability and value of bicycles and components.
