Distance or hours? How to measure bike wear
To know when a bike is due for maintenance, you need a measure of how much it's been used. The two obvious ones are how far it's gone and how long it's been ridden. They don't measure the same thing, and picking the right one means your alerts arrive when they're actually needed.
Two ways to measure the same use
By distance is the measure everyone understands: kilometers. It works well when your customers ride at a similar pace, ride after ride.
By time counts the hours in motion. It's the better fit when kilometers say little about how hard the bike has worked: a slow, technical ride can rack up few kilometers over many hours.
Think about your customers, not the ideal bike. If most of the bikes you look after are ridden in a similar way, one metric will do for all of them.
How sincrona applies it
In your workshop preferences you choose the wear metric: Distance or Time. You use one or the other, never both, and it applies to every bike you maintain. You can switch whenever you like: we recalculate the wear on all your bikes with the new metric.
Your maintenance interval uses the same unit. It starts at 2,000 km with Distance or 200 hours with Time, counted from each bike's last recorded service (or from the start, if it has none).
Every bike shows a circular indicator with its wear level against your interval, colored by how close it is to needing attention: no wear, no maintenance soon, maintenance soon or requires maintenance.
What an estimate can tell you, and what it can't
The wear we calculate is an estimate of each bike's use, based on its rides. It covers the hardest part: knowing, without calling anyone, which bikes are getting close to their next service.
It doesn't replace your mechanic's eye. When the bike comes in, the inspection is still yours: you decide what gets replaced and what lasts another season.
The estimate is only as good as the data behind it. Two details make the difference:
- Every bike, clearly identified. If a customer has several, each one should have its own name in Strava, and they should check which bike each ride is logged against.
- Rides without a bike. Strava lets riders log rides without picking a bike. sincrona groups them under each rider's default bike, and your preferences decide whether your workshop looks after it or leaves it out of your alerts.
Adjust as you go
No interval is right the first time. Start with the default, watch which bikes come in with an alert and what shape they're in when you check them, then tune the number to your own judgment.
Create your workshop's account and pick the metric that fits your customers. It's free for up to 10 riders.
Maintenance alerts
What a bike workshop needs to send maintenance alerts before the breakdown: how much each bike is ridden, your own rules and a channel your customers read.
Between visits
What changes when your workshop knows how each of its customers' bikes is ridden: clear priorities, planned work and new services around maintenance.