Get Your E-Bike Summer-Ready: An Owner's Maintenance Checklist
Every year it is the same story in our workshop. The sun comes out, everyone wants to ride, and the bikes that have sat in the garage since October all need attention at once. Flat tyres, gears that will not index, brake pads worn to nothing, and a fair bit of panic about warning lights. Most of it you can sort yourself in a driveway with a track pump and ten minutes. Some of it is a job for us.
Getting your e-bike summer-ready means two things: a quick set of checks you can do at home (tyres, brakes, belt or chain, battery and bolts), and knowing which jobs to leave to a workshop (brake bleeds, gearbox oil services, suspension and anything safety-critical). Do the first, book the second, and you will not be the person phoning us on a Friday because the bike you have not touched since autumn will not go. Here is how I tell the difference.
Service or maintenance? They are not the same thing
We get a lot of calls that start with "do you service bikes?", which is a different question from "can you fix my bike, because it is completely done in". A service is planned. We go through the bike, make sure nothing is about to fail, and set you up for the season. Our base service is £180, and existing customers get 30% off the labour.
Maintenance is what happens when the bike comes out of the garage in a state and needs putting right first. Often that lands on top of the service, not instead of it. The good news for owners is that most of the summer jobs are things you can stay on top of yourself, which keeps the bill down when the bike does come in.
Start by cleaning it
Cleaning the bike is the best first move, and not just because nobody wants to see you out on a filthy one. When you clean it, you find things. A wash is when you spot the bit hanging off, the cable that has worked loose, the tyre wearing through at the wall. It is exactly what we do first on a pre-delivery inspection: clean it, go over the whole bike, then take it for a short ride and listen for the rattles and squeaks. Do the same at home.
The five-minute pre-ride checklist
Before your first proper ride of the summer, run through this. It takes about five minutes and it is the difference between a good day out and a long walk home.
The five-minute check
- Battery charged, and the key with you so you can remove it if you need to
- Tyres pumped up, tread still there, sidewalls not worn through
- Belt or chain seated on the sprocket, or the chain oiled and running clean
- Lights working, especially for a longer or later ride
- Luggage straps tucked away, nothing loose near the wheels
- Brakes firm, pads with plenty left, and a quick M-check for loose bolts
Tyres come first, because a flat is the commonest thing we see this time of year and the easiest to prevent. Pump them up, check the tread is still there and the sidewalls are not worn through. If you do pick up a puncture, do not assume it is a workshop job. Most of our Riese & Müller and Moustache bikes run a Bosch motor at the pedals, a mid-drive, which means dropping the rear wheel out is no harder than on a normal bike. If your bike has a gearbox or a motor in the rear wheel it is a little more involved, you release it and unplug a cable, but the rest is straightforward. Paying shop labour to fix a puncture you could do at home is the most avoidable bill there is.
If you are on a belt-drive bike, there is very little to do, but there is one check worth making. Over time a belt stretches, and it can end up sitting with half the teeth hanging off the edge of the sprocket. It will run like that quite happily until the day it slips, drops off, catches the frame and snaps. Ten seconds looking at the belt on the sprocket saves you that. Keeping the belt and sprockets clean, back to that first step, is the simplest way to get more life out of both. If you want the detail on how belts work, we wrote a full piece on the Gates carbon belt drive.
Brakes are the check I care about most before a big ride.
From the workshop
"Pull each brake lever back quickly. It should almost knock, a firm thump as it comes back. That means the system is full of fluid with no air in it. If the lever feels soft and spongy instead, you have air in there and it needs bleeding. Do both levers and compare: they should feel the same."
The other one is pad wear. If your pads fail ten miles into a fifty-mile ride you are in for a miserable day. You can limp home metal on metal in an emergency, but it will wreck your discs, and if it is the front brake on a big descent you are not really stopping. Check there is plenty of pad left before you set off, not after.
Finish with an M-check, which is just a route around the bike shaped like the letter M. Start at the front wheel, up the fork, down to the bottom bracket, up the seat post, then down the seat stay to the rear wheel. Give everything a shake as you go, listen for anything nasty, and nip up any bolt that has worked loose. Do not forget the luggage: I have seen more than one rack strap left undone, swing into the spokes and snap. Tuck them away before you ride.
Look after the battery
The battery is the expensive part, so treat it well. Charge it before a big ride, because people genuinely do forget. Over a long lay-off it is happiest stored around half charge, somewhere cool and dry, not left on the charger for months and not in a freezing shed. If you want to sanity-check what range to expect this year, our range estimator will give you a realistic figure for your bike and your riding.
Do not panic about Bosch error codes
Here is the thing owners fuss over the most and need to the least: Bosch error codes. We get people genuinely stressed, emailing and phoning, booking the bike in, all over a code that turns out to be nothing. More often than not it is solved as simply as taking the battery out and putting it back in properly, because it was not clipped in all the way.
The rule of thumb from the workshop is simple. A code that pops up once and then disappears is not worth worrying about. A code that will not go away, and stops the bike working, is the one to act on.
Most one-off codes are just a connection: a screen not clipped on properly, a cable not fully plugged in, a battery not seated. You can prove this to yourself. Switch the bike on, then pull the cable out of the remote while it is running. Up comes an error. Plug it back in, press OK, and it is gone forever. On my diagnostic laptop that logs as "hot unplugging". It is the system telling you that you pulled a cable out, nothing more. Even the scary-sounding ones are often the same story. A communication failure between two parts usually means something is unplugged. I have seen a CAN communication error that was nothing more than a Rohloff hub cable left disconnected. The words sound like the end of the world. The fix was to plug it back in.
Before you google a code, two things. First, work out which system you have, because the older bikes and the newer Smart System do not share the same error codes, and a lot of the confusion online comes from reading advice for the wrong one. If your bike uses the Bosch eBike Flow app, you have the newer Smart System. If it uses the older eBike Connect app, you have the previous generation. Second, on the Smart System the Flow app will tell you in plain English what the error is and what to do about it. Read that before you read anything on the internet.
Dan says
"Googling an error code is like googling what you are going to die of. You start with a pimple on your hand and by the end of the page you are convinced you have a week to live. Cars have the same systems and just show you a warning light. Bosch decided to show you the code, which sends everyone straight to Google to panic."
So the sequence is straightforward. Take off everything that clips or unplugs, the battery, the screen, the remote, put it all back on firmly, and switch on. Is the error still there? If it has gone, forget about it. It is logged for us to see at the next service anyway. If it is still there and the bike will not run, that is when you bring it in. A genuine fault is usually obvious, like a speed sensor magnet that has gone missing off the rear wheel: the error keeps coming back and the bike will not drive. Those we do need to look at. In practice, though, we very rarely see a major failure. These are well-made bikes, even the neglected ones.
What to leave to us
Plenty of jobs are not driveway jobs, and trying to do them yourself tends to cost more in the end. Brake bleeds, gearbox and Rohloff oil services, suspension servicing and anything safety-critical belong in the workshop. Our additional labour is £90 an hour, existing customers get 30% off that, and if you cannot get to us we can collect at £1 a mile from Dartmouth.
If you run a Rohloff or a Pinion, the oil-change interval is a real service item rather than an optional extra. Our year with a Superdelite5 Rohloff goes into what that ownership actually looks like over the miles. And if you want to understand your battery and motor better before the season gets going, the ebikeist buyer's guide covers the care basics.
One for newer owners
Every bike we sell comes back to us for a free return-to-base check-up four weeks after delivery, once everything has bedded in. If you are still within that window, your first summer service is effectively sorted already. After that, a planned service once a year keeps the bike reliable and the warranty simple, because as your dealer we handle any claim directly with Riese & Müller or Moustache.
Common questions
How do I know if my e-bike brakes need bleeding?
Pull each brake lever back quickly. A firm knock or thump as it comes back means the system is full of fluid with no air in it. A soft, spongy lever means there is air in the line and it needs bleeding. Check both levers and compare, they should feel the same.
What should I do about a Bosch error code?
Most are one-off connection issues. Take off anything that clips or unplugs, the battery, the screen, the remote, refit it firmly, and switch on. If the code has gone, it is nothing to worry about. If it stays and the bike will not run, book it in. On the Smart System the eBike Flow app describes the error in plain English, so read that before you google it.
Can I fix an e-bike puncture myself?
On most Riese & Müller and Moustache bikes the motor sits at the pedals, a mid-drive, so dropping the rear wheel out is no harder than on a normal bike. If your bike has a gearbox or a motor in the rear wheel, you release it and unplug a cable first, then the rest is straightforward. It is well worth learning rather than paying workshop labour for it.
How should I store my e-bike battery over a long lay-off?
Store it around half charge, somewhere cool and dry. Do not leave it on the charger for months, and do not leave it in a freezing shed. Charge it fully before your first ride of the season.
How often should an e-bike be serviced?
Riese & Müller and Moustache both recommend an initial check at 400km (about 250 miles), then a service every 2,000km (about 1,250 miles) or once a year, whichever comes first. If you run a Pinion gearbox, that means an oil change every 10,000km (about 6,200 miles), and a Rohloff hub every 5,000km (about 3,100 miles) or annually. All of that folds into our own service, from £180, with 30% off the labour for existing customers, and every new bike gets a free return-to-base check-up four weeks after delivery. If you are not sure what applies to your bike, call us on 03330 151 979, and we will tell you exactly what is due.
Get set for the summer
Run the five-minute check before your first ride, keep on top of the small stuff, and leave the workshop jobs to us. If your bike needs more than a driveway once-over, or you are not sure which side of the line a job falls, book it in. We are ebikeist, the Riese & Müller and Moustache dealer in Dartmouth, Devon, and we would rather set your bike up right than see it let you down ten miles from home. Call us on 03330 151 979 or get in touch and we will get you ready to ride.
