5 Easy Bike Maintenance Tips

Posted on by Joy

Riding a bike is good for health or weight loss. However, a bike can only serve this purpose if it is maintained well. A bike that is maintained works smoothly, lasts longer and is less prone to accidents.

bike

It is uncommon to find people who do not know how to maintain their bikes in the right manner. Here are the top five tips you need to consider.

Keep the Tires Inflated

The pressure of the tires has a significant impact on the quality of a bike. A low tire pressure means that you have to work harder on the pedals to keep the right speed than tires with high pressure. Tires with low pressure are also more susceptible to flats than those that are well inflated.

You need to invest in a quality floor pump with a gauge to help keep the pressures of the tires at suitable levels. The rear tire should have more pressure since it handles most of the weight. You should check the pressure of the tires at least once in two weeks.

In case you are changing a tire, run your fingers along the inside of the rim to check for foreign objects. Foreign objects such as gravel or pieces of glass can pinch the tire against the rim and cause a flat. Also, check the new tube to make sure it is not caught between the tire and the rim.

Adjust the Brakes Correctly

You want to make sure your brakes respond correctly when you need them. They can only perform correctly if you adjust and repair them.

You first have to test the performance of your brakes by pressing the brake levers while the bike is moving. If you pull the lever until it touches the handlebar, then your brakes need some adjustments.

You can adjust the brakes using the barrel in the brake lever. Making the screw in the barrel tight moves the brake pads closer to the rim. You may also unscrew the bolt holding the wire and straighten or tighten the wire before screwing the bolt back.

It is also imperative you keep the pads and all components of the braking system free from dirt. You can use alcohol-based products for cleaning.

Clean Your Bike Regularly

A clean bike is easier to ride than one with mud and dirt everywhere. It also becomes easier to spot a problem and deal with it without too much trouble if your bike is clean. For instance, fixing a flat tire is often difficult when the bike is dirty because you cannot locate the point of puncture.

All you need to clean your bike is a bucket of warm water, detergent that cuts grease, a few sponges and at least two brushes. Make sure you wet the entire bike to loosen any mud or grime before you use the brush. This way, you won’t scratch the paint, which is what normally happens when you begin scratching with a brush before wetting the whole surface.

Make sure every part of the bike is clean, including the brake pads and rims. It is also a good idea to inspect the bike for any faults as you clean.

Keep the Drivetrain Lubricated

A bike that produces a rattling and squeaking sound is embarrassing and annoying, especially when you are riding in a group. You can save yourself from the embarrassment by cleaning and greasing your drivetrain regularly. The squeaking sound is produced when the metals rub against each other due to insufficient grease.

It is also not cheap to replace the worn out parts, so make sure you regularly clean and grease the drivetrain to save some money. You will require some rags, bike oil and de-greasers. You may also require a toothbrush and screwdriver to access the inner parts of the chains and wheels.

Make Sure the Bolts and Nuts are Tight

Make sure all the screws, bolts and nuts in the bike are where they should be by checking if they are loose. Screws and bolts often come off as a result of the constant vibration when you are riding. Some bolts, especially those holding the head tube and handlebars, can cause serious accidents when they come off.

Make sure you don’t tighten the bolts too much. Some bolts have the torque limit written on them. You can buy a bike multi-tool that applies only a specified amount of torque.

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Quick Cooking Tips For Meals In A Jiffy

Posted on by Joy

cooking tips

After a busy day at work, not many of us want to get home and have to spend a couple of hours cooking a healthy family meal. Rather than spend our evenings cooking, many of us end up relying on takeaways and ready meals as a result. But that’s no way to live! The only way to ensure that you follow a healthy diet is to cook your meals from scratch, even if you are running short of time. If you want to make sure you can enjoy a healthy diet even when you are pushed for time, you just need to know these great little tips that can help you really speed up your cooking!

Warm Up Your Oven

What’s the very first step in all recipes? Usually, they always start with heating up the oven. There’s a very good reason for this – it can often take quite a while for your oven to heat up to the required temperature, especially if it needs to be on high. So, rather than waiting around to put your creation in to bake, make sure you turn on your oven first. But the time you need to use it, it will be nice and hot enough!

Don’t Wait For The Kettle

Another part of cooking that can really hold you up is waiting around for the kettle to boil. This is often the case when you need to get boiling water to cook your pasta in. Trust me, waiting for the kettle is a lot quicker than waiting around for a pan of water to boil on the hob! But you can even reduce the time you wait for the kettle by using hot water taps instead. These are taps that are fitted onto your sink and release hot, boiling water. Just make sure your kids don’t go anywhere near them!

Freeze Your Herbs

If your recipe requires fresh herbs, you might find that you spend quite some time chopping them up. Herb plants are often very small and fiddly, and making sure you get all the leaves off and chop them finely enough can be, to put it lightly, a real pain in the neck! But next time you have some free time, you should chop up all the herbs that you currently have, and then freeze them in ice cubes. Then, when you need them in a recipe, you just have to throw in a cube! Easy peasy!

Always Be Neat And Tidy

It can be easy to create a big mess when you are busy cooking. But all this clutter and waste can sometimes get in the way and slow you down. So, be systematic when you are cooking or baking, and be sure to clean as you go. You will also find that this helps you keep your stress levels down, as you won’t be faced with a huge pile of rubbish to clean up afterwards!

Why not help yourself to a beer with your meal – you certainly deserve it after all that speedy cooking!

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What is the best way to store your bike?

Posted on by Joy

If you have spent money on a decent bike you want to do everything you can to make sure it remains in good condition. With this in mind, you need to pay attention to bike parking and storage. It’s important to make sure that your bike is always stored in a secure manner, and that it’s best protected against wear and tear.

store your bike

We are going to look at how you should store your bike once you have finished riding. We are also going to give you some other tips on how to best take care of your bike.

Storing your bike after riding

It’s not a good idea to store your bike on its tyres, so you may want to think about hanging your bike. This storage solution has the added advantage of being useful if you have a limited amount of space. Alternatively, you can invest in a hoist which enables you to suspend your bike from the ceiling. Wherever you decide to store your bike, it’s important that you protect it from the elements and that you ensure it is secured. You do not want someone to just be able to drive up and throw your bike into the back of a van.

Other tips for taking care of your bike

If you want your bike to remain in good working order, it’s important that you take good care of it. Here are some useful tips on how to do this.

  • No matter how much of a rush you are in, never put your bike away dirty, after a ride. It’s worth spending just a few minutes wiping off the grime and dirt, to protect its condition.
  • Never ride your bike if any of the parts need replacing. As soon as you notice that frayed brake cable, get it replaced. It’s just not worth taking the risk of having an accident, or your bike breaking down when you are miles away from home.
  • Never carry out maintenance on your bike if you do not have the expertise, or the tools that you need. If you attempt to do this you could be doing more harm than good.
  • Always check the tyre pressures before you ride. Make sure that there is enough air in the tyre, but never over inflate. Remember that tyre pressures should be adjusted for weather conditions. The pressure should normally be a little lower for bad road conditions than for good; this enables you to have better contact with the road surface.

All of these tips can help you keep your bike in good condition.

Hopefully, we have shown you how important a good storage solution is in helping to maintain the condition of your bike. It’s one of the most important factors in an overall bike care routine. If you look after your bike, and store it wisely, you should help extend its life and maintain its performance levels.

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Wood Flooring Repair – Why Its’s a good idea to Get the Professionals In?

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Stunning solid wood flooring could look terrific, developing an actual sense of style and originality and a modern, contemporary feel within any home. There are several kinds of real timber flooring, each with a look that is totally it’s very own. Matured or distressed flooring, the distinct lines of parquet flooring, there’s synthesized wood flooring and strip floorings in addition to mosaic panels and finish grain timber block floors.

wood flooring

Aged & troubled flooring

Aged wood flooring or troubled flooring presents a fashionable, stayed in look. It looks, for the entire world, as if your flooring has been laid for years and adds a specific authenticity to your home. Aged and troubled flooring is likewise a very practical option for both residences and industrial properties because it keeps looking great for longer. The rugged, used, lived in appearance will disappoint the scrapes and marks triggered by day-to-day use. They are additionally a prominent choice because they never require fining sand unlike other sorts of wood flooring.

Parquet flooring

Parquet wood floorings are a preferred choice and one of the reasons for this is that a parquet floor could be stocked a lot of different ways, with so many different patterns.

Engineered timber flooring

Engineered floors could be set up which either drifting on underlay, are covertly toenailed to existing wood sub floorings or totally glued to the concrete or wood sub flooring. Engineered floorings are great if you need to lower the sound level in a room and they work well with under floor heater. Engineered wood floors are readily available in a wide variety of dimensions from 14mm 3 strip floorings to 20mm architectural crafted large planks. Strip Floors.

Timber floor repairs

Every now and then your wood flooring will require repairing, either to remove scratches or spots or even to fix flooring that was severely stocked the starting point. Scrapes could be sanded away making use of fine to medium sand paper yet it is recommended that any type of discoloured floorboards be changed because, depending how deeply the stain has gone into the wood, you could have to sand quite hard to get the stain out and this can imply that section of flooring will not look the same as the remainder.

Why it is necessary to hire a professional?

With the ever before raising number of DIY shows on tv, a lot of people are trying to restore their own timber floors just to find it’s not as simple as it searches telly. Professional wood flooring reconstruction companies will have purchased the appropriate equipment for the job and in the ideal training.

Having no experience and using makers which are not forgiving could trigger severe damages to your wood floor and could decrease its life by as high as 50% so it is very important to use a company whose employees are completely trained and qualified in wood floor restoration. This will ensure that the tiniest quantity of timber is removed during the sanding process and will as a result extend the life of your flooring.

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Top Tips for installing Stylish Lights in your House

Posted on by Joy

stylish lights

 

Do you want to light up your house in a stylish way? If yes, try the services of companies such Modern.Place which has foolproof plans to change the way your house looks by installing stylish lights that are exotic and exclusive. Contemporary lighting options help to stylize your house and make it look carved out as per the taste of its residents.

Get the lights in your house designed in a unique way and Modern.Place has multiple solutions for all of your concerns about touch up of your house.

Have a look on the new lighting models!

Why not to light up your house in an extravagant way with different shapes and sizes of lights like loop and pendent with inner style fixtures that cost affordable. You will love LED ceilings in quadrate shape and LED slab in different acrylic colors. The range of these lights don’t cost much and shine up your rooms with tasteful pendant lighting.

Product categories of Modern.Place

Check out the products offered by Modern.Place which include the following:

  • sconce lights
  • pendant lighting
  • custom order lights
  • bathroom lighting

You may find more models from the wholesale lightning range as well.

 

 

How to choose the perfect lighting system for your abode?

If you seek to set your house in scintillating mode then first chalk out a budgetary limit for installing lighting fixtures. Take important decisions based upon the following considerations:

  • Do you want a centerpiece or a vase?
  • Upgrading the lights in your house or installing the new ones?
  • Traditional lighting style or contemporary one?
  • Materials that you want, which can be metal or bamboo, glass or crystal!
  • Shape and size of the lighting fixtures you want?

Installing the lights based on the locations in the house

There is no concept of homogeneity for installation of lights in a house. Different portions of the house have varied lighting requirements and you light installation depends upon space availability in different rooms. Choose the lighting arrangement based upon location in the house is as follows:

  • As a rule for getting the lights installed in your room smartly, first check out your entryway which needs to give a relaxed and attractive feel to its visitors. Go for pendent lighting to give an alluring effect to the entry point in your house.
  • For living room area, go for variations as this part of house accompanies many activities. Combine different lightings such as chandelier for a royal look, pendent lamps, floor lamps, table lamps do the needful for a cozier look.
  • Dining room area can have lighting based upon type of dining table you have, for glass table, a pendent or a chandelier is a perfect choice which gives a rich and shining feel to the room

To get a nicely lit up house, choose the lights in a strategic way to get best returns on the investments you made to change the look of the house and make it more livable with the tips provided in this guide.

 

Image source: http://www.modern.place

 

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