Originally Posted by
bpcyclist
Out here in the Land Of The Endless Rain (Portland/ Seattle), we put our bikes in a greaaaaat big shower every time we go for a ride, pretty much every day from early November to May. It rains literally for weeks on end here with no break. No serious, legit Pacific Northwest rider stops riding in the winter--none that I know, anyway. We just gear up and go. And I don't think our bikes are in any worse shape than those in Boston or Manhattan.
Here we have something a lot worse than rain and it's called road salt and it can be very corrosive.. During some bad winters my bikes are getting " salt spray baths " for days on end...On dry winter days the air sometimes has a salty taste, when the wind blows around all the dried out salt that's on the roads.