It’s January. While we’re excited about the possibilities the new year brings and can’t wait to get back on the bike, nature isn’t exactly cooperating. For many of us in the Northern Hemisphere, days are short, cold, wet, and our favorite roads and trails are covered in snow. Surely some of us will throw caution to the wind and ride anyway (much respect), but we at Chris King have a different, more measured, idea for the next few weeks.
Now is the ideal time to give your bike a yearly service and get to work on all those bearings, cables, shocks, derailleurs, and other things you were putting off during the riding season. You know, those little noises or frequent miss-shifts that weren’t bad enough to stop you riding but pestered you every ride. Even if your bike was perfectly smooth and silent all year, now is the time to make sure it stays that way and perform some preventative maintenance.
We know some of you are thinking, “maintenance? What maintenance? You mean I can’t ride my King bearings through rain, sleet, snow, and heat waves all year with impunity?” Well, sort of. We encourage you to put your King components through the worst you can throw at them. Take those jumps and drops. Go on those rainy winter training rides. Add an extra day to your next bikepacking adventure. BUT – we strongly encourage giving your bearings some TLC in the off season to keep them in tip top shape for the rest of the year. All they need is cleaning and lubricating, nothing crazy, to make sure they’re up to the challenge and stay that way, for life.
Chris King Components are somewhat unique in this - they can be almost infinitely serviced and maintained, which can keep them in perfect working order for as long as you want to keep them. Whether that's years, decades, or a lifetime, performing routine maintenance in the off season will keep them spinning, in use, and out of landfills. If something does go wrong, we back all of our components with the King Lifetime Warranty. We're confident you won't need it, but it's there just in case.
Whether you like to get your hands dirty and do all your own maintenance, or you would rather send things back to King HQ and have our technicians give it a Factory Service, we have resources to help you keep your hubs, headsets, and bottom brackets at optimal performance
You can contact our support team and set up a Factory Service HERE.
If you’d like the personal touch of a local mechanic, you can find a King Dealer HERE.
If you like tackling service yourself, you can see all our service videos HERE.
We have pictorial guides to walk you through service step by step HERE and HERE.
For those of you in search of some ‘light’ reading, all our manuals and tech docs are HERE.
You can check out all the greases, lubes, and tools needed to keep your King bearings spinning smoothly HERE.
If you have any additional questions or need a little extra guidance, our Customer Service team is knowledgeable, nice, and more than happy to help. You can contact them at info@chrisking.com or 503-972-4050.
