Cougrrcj

We got slammed Tuesday with over a foot of wet, heavy snow. Lots of road salt. No bike riding on the roads for me until that is washed away in the Spring!

BITD, when I was in school, my Sears three-speed rusted through in just four years from me riding it through Winters. I detail-stripped it at least twice each Winter to repack bearings and pour 90wt oil through the frame to try to prevent rust, all to no avail... The toptube broke near the welded joint at the seat tube. Had it welded and it broke again next to the weld less than two weeks later - just too thin due to rust.

margoC

I guess it depends on where you live but it doesn't get that cold here. Summers are suffocating, I'm already dreading the summer.

PaulH

Interesting. I've never had any salt problems with my bike since I switched to a German aluminum bike with drum brakes and internal gears. On the other hand, I've found that road salt is a major destroyer of cars -- enough so that I never drive when roads are wet and salty. Years ago, roads were not salted and people just used tire chains, which worked fine.

Kapusta

My bike did not "die" from riding a winter of salted roads, but it really did a number on my drivetrain and brakes. This is with full coverage fenders. I did more maintenance to my bike that spring than I usually do in several years.

For many people, rising the bike off is not practical, as when it is below freezing out you will need:
a) either a place indoors to rinse it, or store a hose inside (where it will not freeze) that you then take out each time you rinse off the bike
and
b) somewhere above freezing that will allow the bike to dry off and not freeze the water.

I'll still ride on salty roads if I need to commute (rare the past few years, as I work from home now) but I am only taking my old commuter bike with pretty low end parts. No way I am riding any of my nicer bikes.

That has been my experience, anyway.

freeranger

I've become less tolerant of cold, as I've been in my senior years. Really don't enjoy "bundling" up for a bike ride in cooler weather. Like it 15 degrees warmer than I used to, before I find the ride enjoyable. Just one of the things I'm less tolerant of--now, GET OFF MY LAWN!! PS--I find off-road more enjoyable than on road in cooler weather--the exertion of trail riding takes away the need to bundle up.

CargoDane

A bucket will do. Pour it over. Job done. Fortunately, my brakes are hydraulic. But ,anyway, I have my bikes to use them, regardless of the weather. If it's a rough winter, so be it. It's still way less maintenance and cost - and way more practical - than a car.
I don't have "good weather bikes".

bargo68 

California boy here and it's my first winter commuting full time (50 mile round trip 4 x a week), but the temps when I set out are low 40's.
I love it! A little cold for the first 5 miles but once I'm warmed up I'm good. Wear a merino long sleeve base layer up top with a wind jacket and padded liners with "hybrid" pants over them down below. Wool socks and full finger gloves to keep the digits from going numb.
My hats off to you snow riders!

Kapusta

One bucket of water poured over the bike is not going to do it. Sure, you can do it with a bucket and water, but you are going to need to use a brush of something, and all this is f-ing miserable when it is 22 degrees out. I know this from experience.

And you still need someplace above freezing for the bike to dry out, or at least not freeze up.

I did not say not to ride, just being realistic about the realities of riding in the salt. Some places use a lot of salt, and that salty water and slush can be hell on some parts.

Sure there are ways to mediate this: IGH, belt drive, better sealed braking system, but most people are not riding belt-driven IGHs.

CargoDane

Unless there are pockets of water standing on/in your frame/gear cables/whatever where it freezes and expands, breaking stuff, there is no reason your bike can't survive having frozen water on it. It's a bike. It's a rugged and simple machine.

Okay, I get it: You don't want to rinse it off, you don't want to spend time, money, or energy on end-of-season maintenance and you don't want to have a bike that is good for salty winter riding. Yet you complain about your good-weather-only bikes demanding end-of-season maintenance when used in inclement weather, and you "having to" use a cheap beater bike for winter (which also needs maintenance).

Personally, I don't even rinse off my bikes in winter. I maintain them when they need it. This is one of the reasons I don't like derailleur bikes and steel bikes. As I mentioned previously: I don't do good-weather-only bikes as they are not at all practical.

I also believe it to be rather pointless to have good bikes but when commuting whenever the weather is bad, you have to make do with a cheap, poor-quality bike. That would soon have me take the bus, train, or car.

Gresp15C

A dedicated winter bike has a number of practical uses for me, besides protecting the other bikes from road salt. For one thing, I only have one pair of studded tires, and those tires won't fit on all of my bikes. It's convenient and practical to leave them mounted on one pair of wheels, on one bike. As a practical matter, the ice season nearly coincides with the road salt season.

Not vital, but convenient. Take anything involving bikes, like switching from snow to summer tires, and multiply by the four members of my family. We literally have four winter bikes, that reside under cover in the back yard during the summer.

The winter bike has some other convenience features, mostly defined by the contents of my parts bin: The shifter is easy to operate while wearing heavy mittens. Fender clearance isn't generous, but sufficient. The bike has a chain guard. And so forth.

I don't actually believe that steel frames are necessarily a problem if you care for them, which takes minimal effort. That's the one thing that I haven't worried about. The Schwinn electro-forged frame is steel, coated with a thick protective layer of... steel. My tolerance for quality is... it has to fit, and it has to work.

But I certainly respect other approaches. The nice thing about a web forum is that you get a smorgasbord of ideas to choose from. And I consider those ideas as my bike fleet evolves over time, but nothing happens overnight. For instance, my bikes are what they are, but I wouldn't build up a new bike that wasn't compatible with winter riding, even if I continued to maintain a dedicated winter bike.

canklecat

Tried a buff, balaclava, scarf around my mouth and nose. I'm too snotty on bad days. Those things got nasty. I usually take two or three surgical masks and replace 'em as they get wet.

It's not as bad now after my docs changed my inhalers, and I eliminated some stuff from my diet that was causing problems. Alas, that stuff included beer and milk. I still have a beer once in awhile, maybe once a month, but it still causes sinus congestion and my eyes swell.

Gresp15C

By the way, is CargoDane in reference to Dane County, or Denmark?

CargoDane

Denmark - the country, not Denmark, South Carolina

Gresp15C

That's cool. I live in Dane County, Wisconsin.

Troul 

The driver that helps churning the miles in the cold has a little bit to do with the experiment of what it takes to be that successful ride. Successful definitely is a ymmv to each person, as the success can be achieving the good mood feeling* , maintaining the exercising during the harder times, or just to enjoy freedom by getting out & riding* all while being comfortable*

The * is how I determine successful.

Kapusta

The issue is not the freezing water breaking stuff. The issue is freezing up and interfering with the shifting and braking. I am speaking from experience with this.

Wow. You might ask yourself this: If you find it necessary to misrepresent what I have said in order to make your point, you probably need to be reconsidering your point to start with. I said none of what is in bold above, nor is any of it true. At best It is twisted and embelished versions of what I said, combined with unfounded assumptions. I'm not going to bother responding point by point.

Look, you made a point about salt and bikes without thinking it through first. I just pointed out that it does not always work the way you say it does and backed it up with explanation and personal experience. You should have just let it go. But instead you double down, and end up writing the above nonsense.... which does not even address the point we were discussing..

That great, do what you like. I really don't care, it has nothing to do with me.

This point of this thread was for people to discuss when and if they stop riding during the year. To come in and tell people they are doing it wrong is in really poor taste.

rydabent

My temp range goes from 60 to 100 degrees.

Cougrrcj

My comfort zone? 60-80°F, but I'll ride +/- 20° of that.
I draw the line at snow now that I don't have to ride in it.
Heck, I don't like to ride in the rain any more, either. I won't set out on a ride if it is raining, or a more than 70% chance of my getting wet.
Winds? I prefer less than 15mph, but will ride in 25mph if I must.
Darkness - not if I can help it! My riding season (for my work commute) is dependent on the sunrise - the sun must be above the horizon at the start of my commute. Too many half-asleep drivers otherwise. AND I use my rear blinky. I have a cheap low-intensity front blinky on the one bike - just so half-asleep drivers see me. Before I had that, I had a driver pull out in front of me when I was within 30' - I damned near broadsided him - he claimed he never saw me even though he looked right at me... So now I use the blinky to call attention to myself. That blinky is NOT a headlight on flash-mode. It is ~maybe 25 lum at best.

downtube42

When I moved to the Portland area after living most of my life in the midwest, I immediately noticed the lack of rusty cars. Yesterday I saw a Ford Pinto, beat to heck with paint worn down to bare metal, but not rusty. Amazing. Now we have people who clamoring for salt on the roads. They have no idea. Please no.

In normal times, I'd be obsessing about which bike to set up with studded tires, triple-checking the forecast daily, have a drying rack set up in the garage, and constantly searching online for even better rain gear. Such is the life of a year-round commuter in this climate. But now, working from home, I'm relegated to responding to threads like this. <sigh>.

To make up for the lost clarity that normally would come from my daily commute, I am getting out more on weeknights and weekends. Mixing up the road bike, MTB, commuter for errands, coffeeneuring challenge, and some unicycling. It's okay.