Originally Posted by
tjspiel
You can probably benefit from some of my mistakes. Three years of winter riding have definitely taken their toll.
I'm lucky enough to be able to bring into my office. It's an old warehouse and I hang my bike in the corner from the ceiling by a single wheel.
Two problems with this. One is that corrosion happens quicker in warm temps. Two is that all the salt and crap dripped from from the top of the bike to the bottom as it hanged there.
This winter I'm going to leave the bike outside. While the frame still looks good, I've all kinds of problems with rust on the components. After last year, one side of my front cantilevers would barely move. My front derailleur wouldn't extend. The skewer in my rear wheel became a permanent part of the axle. The chain was shot but I figure I'm going to go through a chain a season anyway. After 3 years my rear cassette is toast and I'm not looking forward to trying to get it off.
It's too cold where I live to clean it (outside) with any regularity during the winter. I'd have to drag a filthy bike through the house to get it in the basement, and that's not going to go over well. Something needs to change though, so I may be bringing it to a self-serv carwash now and then.
Where do you live????
One thing about wiping a bike down (and I do this even where I park my bike at work - in the misc. closet that has a lot of wide open space - and I have my soft towels in there and totally wipe it off - and in the winter I do a good chain clean with a wet lube about evey 3 days (not at work) - doesn't take long and is well worth it.
As for dragging a mushy, slush slothing bike thru the house - boy I hear that one. I get it at work - so before I take it into the building (have to the elevators 5 floors) - I bounce the bike up and down a couple of times to loose some of the crud - believe me this allows you to roll your bike here and there and park it - and nothing falls off it (even though you're proud of that clump of semi ice
). And when I get the bike into the storage closet area - I wipe it down. Takes a whole time of <10 minutes. Once you have the bike up to where you like it - clean standards wise - maintaining becomes a second nature.