Snow, Ice, and Salt: what it does to your bike

As most of you know, i winter commute, and for those of you who do the same you know what your bike looks like at the end of each trip.  Snow, ice and road salt collect in your fenders, under the bottom bracket, and if you don't have fenders, on the bottom tube. I have heard all kinds of methods on how to take care of your bike in the winter to make it last.  I have heard that you need to clean it after every ride, bring it inside when your done riding, or even just leave it outside with the snow, and ice left on it.

Well some of that is good and some not so.  What i recommend is to not bring it inside over night and leave it outside in the garage, shed, or really well locked to a post or something.  If you bring it inside all that salt ans snow will melt and speed up the rusting process on your cables, chain, and other exposed metal parts, even if you knock off all the snow and ice. i would recommend is when you leave your bike outside, knock off all the snow and ice deposits. If you have a multi speed bike with a derailleur and you always have trouble shifting in the morning when you leave in the morning, at the end of every ride shift it into the middle cog so that in the morning all you have to do is shift into the low gears and not have to kick your derailleur to make it move.  Also do the same thing with front derailleur if you have that problem.

If you have to take your bike inside everyday make sure that you knock off all the deposits and then when you get it into your house or apartment clean your bike off with a cleaner.  Clean your frame, cables, everything...  get into the nooks and crannies especially where there's metal exposed, that's where the rust will start.

Another thing i would recommend is to buy and install a sealed bottom bracket so prevent dirt, snow, ice, salt, and anything else that you don't want in there.  Another great tip, get a bike or rear hub for your current bike that has internal shifting, with everything internal you don't have to worry about snow clogging up your cassette and rear derailleur.  You can buy hubs or bikes with internal shifting with a number of speeds from 2 to 14 speeds in one hub, but the higher the speeds the higher the price, so be careful what you get cause it may cost you more than you want to spend.

I am going to be doing a conversion on my recumbent and eliminating both derailleurs.  I'm going to try and put on an internal eight speed hub, i'm not sure if it will work, but i will know Tuesday afternoon.  The only problem I can see is that i have a vertical rear dropout, and not a horizontal rear dropout, the nice thing about having a horizontal rear dropout is that you can adjust chain tension more than you can with a vertical dropout. I'll let you know what happens after Tuesday.

Keep on Biking....