Today was a beautiful day to ride to work. 45 degrees and sunny, with a slight headwind going West but I didn't mind. I was down to my longsleeve base layer and no gloves by half way through the ride. If you can get out and ride during all the holiday craziness this weekend, DO IT. It's supposed to be in the 50s and beautiful for the next two days and then rain starting Saturday. We probably won't see weather like this again for months.
Which brings me to the point of this post. If your still riding your road bike or at least a "nice" bike, and your thinking about riding through the winter it's time to start thinking about how your going to deal with the slush and salt.
I generally don't recommend riding an expensive bike through the winter. No matter what you will need to find a way to clean your bike on a regular basis. Unless your cleaning your bike every night, your going to start to see some rust on some parts thanks to all the salt that WI puts in the roads. So I recommend getting yourself a less expensive bike to commute on in the winter because the parts will be less expensive to replace at the end of the season.
That being said, spend the money winterizing the inexpensive bike by doing things like replacing the cables with Teflon coated stainless steal cables and a stainless steal chain. And if your going to be riding a steal frame bike I recommend getting some Framesaver. Make sure you coat the inside of all the tubes. Look for drain holes in the seat and chain-stay tubes to accomplish this.
I recommend Jagwire cables and housing. They make Teflon coated cables and housing in pre-cut packages with ferrules and tips and they come in assorted colors. As for Stainless chains, KMC makes stainless and corrosion resistant chains for all different widths.
I realize not everyone can justify buying another bike just to ride in
the winter, so if your going to ride your everyday bike, take care of
it. Clean it regularly, replace parts with corrosion resistant ones,
store it inside if you can or under an overhang, etc. Otherwise your
bike might look like this by the end of the winter.
Next post I'll be talking about the debate over tire width and studded vs. non, so stay tuned.
Good post but it's Steel not Steal unless you want me to Steal your steel bike and chain :) You can also be lazy (if you can afford it) and buy/build a aluminum bike with belt drive and either internal gears or a SS. I rode mine all last winter(every day) and never cleaned it once. It was rusty around the bolts and such but never failed me....and is ready for studs to be mounted for another season.
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ReplyDeleteSorry for the miss spelling, I have a problem with homonyms. I agree if you can afford it that's the best thing in the world. The only problem is that you would have to have a custom frame built. For most people just getting a second bike specifically to ride in the winter is a big enough step and that's what this post was all about. I personally have an aluminum frame with an eccentric BB that I'm planning to build up with a Nuvinci hub and a SS chain. I can't wait to get going on that project. I think that with roller brakes it should be the ultimate low maintenance bad weather machine. Just out of curiosity why did you post as anonymous instead of your name, who are you?
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