Frame Care

Taking care of your prize possession

Taking Care of your Starling Cycles Frame

This page is a guide to looking after, servicing and maintaining your Starling Cycles frame.

You might also find the following useful: 

Starling Cycles Warranty and crash replacement, frame repair, repaint and refurbishment service. 

Recommended products:

Dinitrol 1000

Dinitrol 1000 is a great way to protect and maintain steel mountain bike frames. It’s available widely online.

Waterproof Grease

Waterproof grease is great to apply on contact points and anywhere that isn’t painted. Any grease will do the job, Juice Lubes Bearing Juice is £5.99 online.

Caring for your steel mountain bike frame

All Starling Cycles frames are made from top-quality steel. That means a little bit of care is needed to avoid issues with rust.

Our swingarms are full Electroless Nickel plated, this is a full internal and external rust protection. Rust should not be an issue with these frames.

Our UK made front triangles need a little bit more care but nothing more than your usual maintenance on a mountain bike frame. However, the benefit of these frames is that the tubes are sealed so that only the seat tube, head tube and bottom bracket are exposed to the air.

The outside of all Starling Frames is power coated or painted which protects against rust. The only exceptions are the various holes or threads where small edges of bare metal may be present. If you’re careful to apply grease to these areas you’ll have no problems at all.

The inside of frames needs a little bit of care – particularly the seat tube, head tube and bottom bracket which are exposed to the elements. Seat tubes have Dinitrol rust protection applied before they’re shipped. Head tubes and bottom brackets need a good layer of grease to keep them rust-free.

What do you need to do?

We’d strongly recommend removing your seat post every couple of months and re-greasing the inside of the seat tube. A squirt of frame protection down the seat tube from time to time doesn’t hurt.

Head tube and bottom bracket internal surfaces should be greased regularly as part of your normal maintenance routine.

Any bare metal surfaces or holes should be well greased.

Our Tech Journal article titled ‘Nobody Likes a Stuck Seatpost’ should give you more info if you need it.

Do I need to worry?

Nope! Steel takes a long time to rust, especially with a little bit of low-effort maintenance. Your Starling Cycles frame should if cared for correctly, last a lifetime.

Anything else?

Some of the earliest Starling frames didn’t have sealed top tube and down tubes. These frames just need a good spray of Dinitrol 1000 down the tubes and they’ll be fine.

If things get really bad, we offer a Frame refurbishment and repaint service, which includes fresh bearings

Bearing care

Our bearings are pretty low maintenance, but it’s worth giving them a service and a full change now and again.

The video below shows you how to change the bearings on a Murmur or Swoop.

Note, we offer bearing replacements as part of our Frame Repaint and Refurbishment Service