Banzai

(Cross posting from Winter Cycling since there's no traffic there right now...)

The perennial question. A drivetrain for winter, particularly the St. Paul winter.

So last winter I ran an Alfine 8. It was...ok. I have had reliability issues with it that are a whole different thread, and have sunk more money into making it work than I care to countenance. But, the issues with it for winter are:

1. The cassette joint can still get gunked up. And once it or its cable gets winter crusted, it's not going to do much for you.

2. God help you if you have to change a flat. It's bad enough in a climate controlled room. But I had to do it in the cold, on the road, and it is the worst thing to ever do on a bike when you are at 5deg F, and the mechanism is grunged up with slush and ice and salt, and your fingers feel like they are shredding on the parts. God help you if you are ever in this situation.

3. If you ever actually talk to someone at Shimano for warranty support (again, reliability issues), the list of things they will tell you the hub is NOT for is staggering. Trails? No. Winter/cold? Big no. Towing a trailer? No. Standing on the pedals for a big effort? No. In fact, they were pretty clear with me that the hub is not for anything more than soft-pedaling in fair weather on bike paths. So, I figure when it breaks from doing real riding, I won't replace it.

I would go single speed. However...

My stable has limited slots in it. One slot is occupied by my "utility" bike, which does duty as the winter bike. It also pulls the kids in the trailer, and I am NOT going to pull their chubby toddler behinds out of Hidden Falls park on a single speed. I need some gears. According to Shimano my Alfine gears will soon be toast from pulling those kids, but until life-after-Alfine, there it is.

So I really think I want to go back to a derailer, and a triple crank. How bad is it in the ice and snow, really? Are there tricks to keep the mech from turning into a dangling hunk of rust? Tricks to keeping things shifting? And honestly, if a couple of cogs skip a lot, it will still be doing as well as my Alfine.

tjspiel

In spite of Shimano's ass covering, there are lots of people using Alfines for mountain biking. I've used an Alfine 8 for probably the last 4 winters, - the last two of which I'll acknowledge were pretty wimpy.

But I haven't had much trouble with it. Which cassette joint were you using? The wet weather one? That's what I have and haven't had much trouble with it freezing but cable corrosion caused some problems.

After the first year I did replace the grease and did an oil bath instead which has improved cold weather performance. The Alfine has not been as low maintenance as I would have hoped but it's been better than any derailleur I've used during the winter. Towing a trailer is not something I've tried in cold weather though. At least not on a regular basis.

Another alternative to a derailleur would be a different IGH and if you were to go back to derailleurs, I'd go 1 X something. The front derailleur is what always seemed most susceptible to ice and grit. I remember trying to kick them loose with my foot.

cyccommute 

I haven't found them to be that bad for the 35 years I've winter commuted. If you want to avoid rust, don't use steel components. That's a bit tough for the chain but not so much for the rest of the bits. Also rinse them off once in a while. I realize that's harder in St. Paul than in Denver but it should be impossible.

As for the chain, I used a KMC X9 Eco Pro Teq chain (it comes in other widths as well) on a couple of bikes last winter. It's a corrosion resistant chain and it does exactly what it says. It resists rust quite well and is only a bit more expensive than a regular chain.

As for the rest of the bike, I'd suggest titanium for as much of it as you can afford. Titanium is resistant to chloride corrosion unlike aluminum (which is bad) and steel (which is worst).

tsl

I'm with cyccommute. I've never really understood what all the fuss is about. The only steel is in the chain and cassette, and using a good, persistent lube (like our own FBinNY's Chain-L) takes care of that.

As for shifting, the trick to keep it shifting is... to shift. I've not had problems, except in rare circumstances. I suspect it's because I use close-ratio cassettes and shift a lot to keep my cadence high, which I've found helps me keep balance in side-slip situations.

In the rare cases where the cassette has gunked up, it's because I was stuck behind pokey traffic and not shifting. This leads me to believe that those who report problems with gunked-up cassettes are those who find a favorite gear and stick with it, single-speed style, then change their minds after they've let the gunk collect.

I can see too where ice in the cables could be an issue, but thus far I've avoided problems there by shifting, and by using the newer high-end cables (Shimano OP-41 and OP-52 housing, and anybody's polymer/teflon coated cables) along with long-nose ferrules (Jagwire). Keeps the water out, and the silicone inside the housing with the teflon on the wire, means that even when water gets in there, it has a tough time making things stick.

As my STI levers have gotten older, the grease inside them tends to thicken at higher and higher temperatures. The WD-40 flush does the trick for that. I have a Dura-Ace left lever that now begins to stick below about 55°F. That bike has leather bar tape I don't want to replace just yet, so I put up with it. On the bikes with the plain-Jane bar tape, I didn't mind sacrificing the bar tape.

Finally, good fenders with mudflaps that threaten to brush the ground keeps the drivetrain a lot cleaner in all conditions, but particularly in slush. My 2006 Portland with SKS Longboards:



Those are the three-seasons 35mm width. When the studs go on, I swap them for the 45mm width.

PaulH

1 I use a Nexus 7, which may be more utility-oriented than the Alfine. No problems, ever, with the exception of cable icing, which is easily prevented doing what tsl does.

2 Marathon Winter plus Mr. Tuffy gives the same rate of flats per mile as the tires on my car. I don't carry anything for fixing flats. If I got one, I'd hail a cab.

3 I've had the bike for 16 years, so any Shimano warranty has long expired. I will say that towing a trailer, standing on the pedals, and cold weather have been SOP for years. No problem.

I did ride with a derailleur for one winter. It was a bit like using a violin to hammer nails.

wphamilton

We don't have winter the way you do in St. Paul, but a single taste of it on one commute home prompted me to buy a fixed gear and enclose the drive train. Icing up on the cogs, both derailleurs, even the chain, then stopping in the storm to chip off enough to get going again, was too much to risk a repeat. I guess a veteran of MN winters would know to keep the chain moving no matter what, and never shift, and work the brake cables so they don't freeze, but I suspect those skills only come with a lot of hard winters.

I don't know that rust is as big an issue. Salt and grit maybe, but honestly our winters are probably consistently wetter than the icebound ones, and I just wipe it down keeping lube on the chain and it's alright. So I wouldn't consider that as a major factor. I know that grit from the snow and slush will accelerate wear though.

bmthom.gis

My solution was moving south
I don't like cold. I don't like shoveling snow.

bikemig 

I run a 2 x 6 for winter commuting in IA. It works fine but you do have to keep the bike somewhat clean.

Mr IGH

Some folks struggle with IGHs and they just never get them working, for whatever reason. It'll be interesting to see if OP has better results with a derailleur.

I'm running an Alfine 501 with 26/20 on my snowbike and it's on it's fourth season. I have the dreaded Alfine 11 on a commuter and it works very well, again I'm running a lower than expected 39/24 on it.

corrado33

My nexus 8 has been fine for me down to -20C last year. Sure, it gets a bit stiff (pedals keep rotating when you remove your feet and are going forward) but I never had any real problems. It shifted all winter as well. Once or twice it shifted slow, so once I started pedaling it it'd SKIP to the right gear. So when it's cold I always soft pedal after I shift. (I stop pedaling WHILE I shift.)

I have had problems with derailleurs in winter. The first winter out here (which was a bit worse than the last two) I rode through a lot of snow on my winter bike. The cassette/freewheel got covered in snow, which then immediately froze. My commute is relatively flat, so I only shift between a few gears unless I'm stopping. Basically I couldn't shift to other gears because of the ice frozen under the cogs wouldn't let the chain sit on them correctly. Yes, my bike is kept in a garage out of the elements, but that didn't help.

However, I DO dread the day when I have to change a flat in the cold. But with that said, I've never gotten a flat with that bike and my winter tires on them. Honestly if it happened I'd probably just walk to the closest business and ask them if I could do it in there. It's Montana, they'd understand. It's dangerous to be out in -20C for long.

EDIT: It must be said that my IGH bike has full (and I'm talking FULL) fenders on it, while the derailleur bike had those little clip ons that just prevent your back from skunk striping.

EDIT2: Also of note. If you do have FULL fenders on a bike, be careful how low the front fender comes in the back of the wheel. Look at TSLs above. When the snow gets above the bottom of the fender, it makes it difficult to ride. Ask me how I know.

EDIT3: However, my BAD WEATHER winter bike (which is in reality just my spare mountain bike with nice nokian studded tires on it) is a derailleur equipped bike. I take this bike if the snow is REALLY high, or it's REALLY icy. It's not that the tires have more grip, I just have more control of a mountain bike than I do of my normally road oriented 700c bike. (Plus you can sit a bit lower and the suspension helps with ruts.) Yes the gears do get gunked with snow, but it's a tradeoff I'm willing to make for more control over the bike. Also the derailleur does drag in the snow if you're riding through enough snow. Ask me how I know. haha

79pmooney

Back in the day, mid-seventies Boston, the word from the bike racing guru (John Allis), the mechanic I worked with and the guru-to-be Sheldon Brown was ride a fix gear! I started riding fix gear summer of '76 at the suggestion of the club vets to improve my pedaling style. Rode it into the winter and - breakthrough! - what a system for riding on snow and ice! Kept riding it through the winter. And other benefits just kept coming. Frozen chain links? Slide the wheel forward to get the proper chain slack and keep riding. After the second or third I would lube the chain. (This was the short days of winter. I never saw the bike during daylight hours or had it near running water until spring and outdoor faucets were back on. Road salt everywhere was a fact of life.)

Another benefit. Crashes happen, especially on ice and snow. Good thing is that I was well dressed and padded and rarely got hurt. And that fix gear? Well it mattered not whether I crashed to the left or to the right. No derailleur was going to get trashed.

To sum up. The fix gear is the one system that can be operated without sight or lube, slammed by a blunt objects and have the most corrosive salt there is injected anywhere with just enough water to maximize its effect and it still works. That it gives far better control on slippery surfaces and therefor crashes less and provides a superb winter training effect and costs less to operate; well those are just perks.

Ben

wolfchild

In my experience, fixed gear drivetrain is the best for winter commuting. Nothing to break, nothing to go wrong, it always works even if you get lazy and neglect to clean and lube your drivetrain, it's cheap because singlespeed chainrings and track cogs last a lot longer then multi speed cassettes. Single speed is a close second in realiability...Derailleurs suck and I hate them.

ItsJustMe

Derailleur worked pretty much OK for me in about 10 years of commuting. I now have an Alfine 8. I'm not sure it gives me less trouble than the derailleur did.

The derailleur worked fine as long as there wasn't any ice on it. A few days a year it would ice up and I'd pretty much be stuck in whatever gear it happened to be in. Shifting got a little wonky but in general it was at least in some gear.

The Alfine gets all gunked up on the shift cable and lever, and it can just decide it's not in any gear and just slip and grind. I have to shift around to try to find a spot where it will actually be in SOME gear, ANY gear. When I get home I can clean and adjust it, and it'll be fine for a while. Maybe the rest of the winter, or a week, or until the next ride.

I wonder if electronic shifting would be better in this regard? Maybe it would, but maybe the cold would kill it.

I'm also wondering if I could build some rubber boots to enclose the entire bottom end of the cable and shift lever area.

Banzai

Good thoughts on the fenders. Yeah, I'm running Planet Bike Cascadias, which have some pretty awesome coverage, but I can see how they may be a drag in some circumstances.

Right now my hub is working, so it will stay on. But as soon as it starts giving me problems again, it's coming off for some cheap Deore hubs and a traditional cassette.

Banzai

Since I don't haul the trailer in winter (yet...things can change), maybe I should get a bike with adjustable dropouts. Run it geared during 3 seasons, and fixed in winter.

ThermionicScott 

If you don't need multiple gears in the winter, it's a great way to go.

CrankyOne

One of the advantages of IGH is that the drivetrain can be fully enclosed. That's what you'll see on just about every bicycle used for transportation outside of english speaking countries (and one of many reasons why they don't use derailleurs). That will take care of about 90% of winter problems. Next is to keep cables working which for me means dripping a bunch of oil in the housings about once every 5 years. We've ridden through MN and other winters with Nexus 8's, SA 3's, and N-360's with zero problems. Which reminds me, I think I'm a couple of years overdue on cable oiling. :-)

As [MENTION=90453]tjspiel[/MENTION] mentioned, an oil bath helps the Nexus' a lot.

fietsbob

The venerable sturmey archer 3 speed works fine , for braking in bad weather
getting their Drum Brake hubs does the trick.

{I moved to the NW Coast, been 2 winters with out Ice , 3 years ago 1 week was Icy. )


A Non shifting Chain Tensioner on the back, and you can use a double chainring

Pick One for towing the trailer and a different size for without..

BobbyG

Last winter was the first winter in 15 years that I commuted in snow and ice, and temperatures down to 10F. My 3x7 Mountaintain bike setup worked fine including the cables. BUT, in years past on both this same bike, and one previous my main issue was moisture freezing in the cable guides. But back then I stored my bikes outside under a bike cover. The previous bike was a 1987 Schwinn Cruiser Supreme and it's derailieur did gunk and freeze up. The 97 Nishiki Blazer's gears and derailieurs were fine. YMMV

79pmooney

One caveat here. If you use a singulator you have the same crash vulnerabilities as a rear derailleur. But if you tension your chain with horizontal dropouts (or use an eccentric BB or hub) your freewheel now reaqlly approaches fix gear reliability. Say grit or salt gets in your freewheel - about the worst thing that can happen to it. Consequences? Well it just turned into a mediocre fix gear! But you still get home!

Banzai

The appeal of fixed is if the brakes freeze up. The drawback is that over some surfaces I just relax and coast over them. Tends to go better than pedaling sometimes.

Banzai

A Salsa with alternator dropouts could be easily converted when seasons change...

corrado33

That is, in no way, shape, or form a worry. I've ridden rim brakes down to -40C, so unless you're in the arctic circle, you're probably not going to see worse. The worry with rim brakes is they get clogged with snow. If that's the case you're generally not traveling quickly anyway (riding through snow is... hard) so it's not a big deal.

My disc brakes have never frozen either. Some hydraulic fluids freeze around -56C, but I've never been in that cold of weather, and neither should you! It's dangerous out when it's that cold. You certainly shouldn't be riding your bike at that temperature.

Banzai

This is similar to my own experience. I've found the Alfine to be exquisitely sensitive to the most minor imperfections, whether induced by environment, temp changes, gunk, cable stretch, whatever.

tjspiel

Frequent shifting didn't really help me. It's not like stuff freezing was a constant problem but it happened every winter. It tended not to happen if it stayed cold. The most likely conditions for it to occur would be when there was a transition from slushy/snowy/wet weather to very cold weather. That's not all that uncommon here. A winter storm of some sort is often followed by a cold front passing through. And since our garage takes a day or so to completely cool off if it's been warmish, I'll sometimes have a bike that's still wet from the night before freeze up about a mile into the ride on a cold morning.

It's fair to say that I had more problems with the front derailleur than the rear and there is definitely less shifting happening there.

Aside from cable freezing issues, derailleurs do have plenty of steel parts that will corrode as do skewers and brakes. Rear fenders do them no favors as stuff tends to splash down from the fenders on to spinning spokes, cassettes, chains, and hubs and gets thrown everywhere. So even those parts that don't rust end up with grit in them. Anything with a hinge or unsealed bearing will not move so smoothly after a long winter.

A regular Spring ritual used to be spending a few hours cleaning up the rear derailleur. A couple of cheapies I decided weren't worth the effort anymore so I tossed them. Eventually I moved to an IGH largely for those reasons but I haven't escaped winter maintenance issues altogether. As has already been mentioned the cassette joint on an Alfine is an exposed moving part that needs attention and I've decided that an oil bath needs to be an every other year process.