There comes a time when you need to change the grease used for the pedals on your bike. If you’ve never done this before, it can be difficult to know exactly where to start. There are loads of different greases on the market. Depending on who you ask, you’ll get different answers, some will tell you that you need a very specific grease otherwise you’ll end up damaging your bike pedals. Others will suggest something more generic. With so many contrasting views, online or in person, it can be rather difficult to know which opinion that you should pay attention to.
You need to make sure that you have grease on your pedals. Otherwise, they will seize up. You can either buy a specific cycling grease, which will work well, but I’m going to level with you, any good grease will do the job just as well.
I say this with confidence as I’ve used a wide variety of greases over the years for my bicycles and when I’ve been installing pedals on my own bikes and friends bikes, and I’ve never had an issue. I just pick out the first grease that comes to hand and use that. There will be people who will scream that, that’s the wrong thing to do. But this isn’t a highly stressed part, it doesn’t get hot, so any general-purpose grease will do the job.
What kind of grease should you use for bike pedals?
Right, so we’ve established that you don’t really need a special grease for your bike pedals. But given a choice, which grease would I go for?
I personally use my Mag 1 grease for almost everything these days. I always have a tube laying around in my garage. It’s a fantastic multi-use grease, so it’s designed for use on pretty much anything, including bike pedals, so you won’t have to worry about them seizing up.
I use Mag 1 grease for pretty much everything, so I highly suggest that you get yourself some as it really comes in handy.
Does the grease temperature resistance matter?
A common question I get is, should I worry about temperature? Does the temperature resistance of the grease matter? You’ll see that many grease companies will advertise that their products are a ‘high temperature’ grease. This means that they can withstand extremely high-temperature situations.
If you are using this grease for your bike, then you really don’t need to worry about temperature. Your bike isn’t going to be in the high-temperature environments, and the bearings, etc. won’t get to those extreme temperatures that would require a high temp grease.
When companies talk about their greases being high temperature, what they are referring to is really high temperatures, 700 degrees or more, this isn’t something your bike is going to experience.
Can you use anti-seize on a bike?
Anti-seize isn’t something you would normally use on a bike. The reason being is that it’s very easy for a bike to seize up if it doesn’t have proper lubrication. I know you are wondering.. wait, but anti-seize will prevent that, right?
Anti-seize products such as copper grease, well people think that copper grease are lubricators, but it’s actually only an anti-seize product, it providers little to no lubrication. I know it’s got grease in the name, and the term ‘grease’ is a little confusing. But by not providing any lubrication, it’s not suitable for use with a bike. Your bike needs lubrication, and copper grease is designed to prevent seizing, not for helping with lubrication.
The only place that you might want to use some anti-seize would be on your seat post. If you’ve got a metal seat post, it can help keep the seat post in place without the post seizing up. But in all honesty, you could just use some MAG 1 on the seat post and pedals, and you’ll be fine.
Should I use fiber grip on my bike?
Like any anti-seize product, fiber grip isn’t something that jumps out as something you need when doing bike maintenance. You might be tempted to use fiber grip on parts of your bike, such as the steerer tube, but you really shouldn’t. Why? Well, over time, it will actually increase the wear and tear of your steerer tube, which is something we really don’t want.
There are other areas of the bike that you can use fiber grip on, any part of your bike that gets clamped together. When you are fitting your seat post into the bike frame, for example, using a bit of fiber grip can help you get the seat to enter the frame much more easily.
Threadlocking fluid for bike bolts?
If you have a lot of bolts on your bikes and the majority of bikes do. Then I would suggest that you will want to use a thread locker as it will help you with the maintenance of your bike. Personally, I find it’s important to use a good Threadlocker, Permatex and Loctite work well on these important parts of your bike, this prevents your bolts from coming loose when you don’t want them to.
I make sure to use it on the disc brake rotors, as a bit of thread locker ensures that these bolts are kept nice and secure. There’s nothing worse than your brakes failing on you, it will lead to accidents, and you may potentially getting seriously hurt.
Wrap Up
I really hope that this has cleared up any issues that you may have had when considering what kind of grease for brake pedals. If you are wondering how to maintain your bike properly, then hopefully this article has helped with that as well. Although there are some people who think that you can use grease everywhere, there are some occasions when using a different type of product, it really helps with the maintenance and keeps your bike working properly.
To apply the grease properly, I highly suggest getting a good grease gun. This can and will make things a lot easier and less messy. For the most part, bikes are very easy to maintain with a normal general purpose grease.
