Protecting bike from salt and rust in commutes
Originally Posted by
pdlamb
Ride the beater bike for daily commutes, and save the nice road bike for nicer weather, or weekends when you can devote 30 minutes to post-ride cleaning and maintenance after every ride.
Originally Posted by
Jim from Boston
My strategy too.
My pristine carbon fiber bike is completely in storage from December to March.
Originally Posted by
wolfchild
I don't bother cleaning my bikes during winter.I rinse the salt off with water once a year at the end of winter season and keep everything well lubed.
Don't worry about a little bit of rust on the chain, bolts and other hardware, the rust is just cosmetic. The most important thing is protecting the frame. Spray some automotive rustproofing oil inside the frame.
So too I don’t bother cleaning my beater either. We live in a small downtown condo, and I don’t have easily accessible facilities, like a garage.
If the bike, mainly the drive train is particularly filthy, my bike shop one block away does a good cleaning.
Originally Posted by
Jim from Boston
…Besides time, I have never had good facilities to work easily. Even now we live in a relatively small, but elegant condo, and my wife would frown on a room with a bike stand. Having the LBS do it all, in my case is a really good deal.
The shop is one block away, and they will fix many things at a convenient time for me [especially when not busy during bad weather].
They are so expert that they can do these things quickly, better than me, and often spot problems that I did not see. Whenever I leave the shop, the bikes ride as if new again.
Because the bikes are a major transportation mode for me, keeping them in good repair is critical. We save a lot of money on transportation, so further using the LBS is even more cost-effective…Hats off to Back Bay Bikes.
My beater is a good quality aluminum
Specialized Diverge, and I bought it as a good-riding beater that I would nonetheless subject to the elements, without the distress of messing up my high end
Specialized S-Works.
