The Commute
A Rack Beats a Backpack the Moment You Start Sweating
A bag on your back sits on the one part of you that most needs airflow. Moving the load onto the bike changes how you arrive more…
Manav Deshpande
Contributing writer, Ride Banana
Manav writes about road safety and how riders and drivers actually read each other.
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16 articles
Maintenance
Why a Chain Wears the Cassette Rather Than Stretching
A worn chain is longer than a new one, but no metal has been pulled thin. Understanding what actually elongates tells you when to…
The Commute
Waterproof Jackets and the Boil-in-the-Bag Problem
A fully waterproof garment keeps rain out and keeps your own moisture in. On a bike, that trade-off decides whether you arrive wet…
The Commute
Locking a Bike at Work Without Losing It by Friday
Bike theft is a volume crime committed quickly with simple tools. What deters it is the time and noise required, not the price of…
The Commute
A Headwind Costs You More Than the Hill You Are Avoiding
Riders plan routes around gradients and ignore the wind entirely. On exposed ground, moving air can demand more sustained power…
Maintenance
Truing a Wheel Just Enough to Get Home
A full wheel build is a skill. Straightening a buckle sufficiently to ride is a twenty-minute job with one tool and a clear idea of…
Maintenance
Most Worn-Out Bikes Need a Cable, a Chain and Clean Rims
A bike that shifts badly, stops poorly and feels tired is usually not worn out. It has three consumables at the end of their life…
Maintenance
Chain Lubricant Matters Less Than the Cleaning You Skip
Riders debate wet against dry and wax against oil at length. The variable that dominates chain life is whether grit is removed…
Maintenance
Why Your Gears Skip and Which Adjustment Actually Fixes It
Indexed shifting fails in a small number of characteristic ways. Each has a distinct symptom, and matching the symptom to the cause…
Maintenance
When a Hydraulic Brake Needs Bleeding and When It Does Not
A spongy lever gets blamed on air in the system by default. Several other faults produce the same feeling, and bleeding a brake…
Maintenance
Tubeless and Tubes: What You Give Up Either Way
Removing the inner tube solves a specific set of problems and creates another set. Whether the trade suits you depends on where you…
Maintenance
That Creak Is Probably Not the Bottom Bracket
Noise travels through a bicycle frame, so the place a creak seems to come from is often not where it is made. Diagnosis is a…
The Commute
Multi-Stop Days Are Where a Bike Beats a Car
Over one long journey a car wins easily. Over five short ones with parking in between, the arithmetic reverses and keeps reversing.
Maintenance
Why a Bolt Comes Loose and What Threadlock Actually Does
Vibration does not unscrew fasteners by magic. It relaxes the clamping force that was holding them, and then the thread has nothing…
Maintenance
Cleaning a Bike Badly Is Worse Than Not Cleaning It
Water forced into a bearing does more damage than a month of road grime ever will. The order and the pressure both matter more than…
Maintenance
Rust, Seized Bolts and the Parts That Weld Themselves Together
Two metals left touching in damp air slowly become one part. The repair you postpone becomes the repair that needs a workshop and…