Bicycle Mechanics - How rusty can it be and still be ridable?

I keep my shiny specialized in my room but the toys r us mtb with the knobbies I used to ride around during last week's blizzard's starting to rust through like there's no tomorrow. Chain's yellow, crank's yellow, rear hub's starting to yellow out...
There's salt all over the entire bike along with wet soggy snow right now, it's supposed to rain in the next few days, hopefully that'll rinse the salt off.
I keep that bike outside locked up next to a street sign 24/7, junker anyway, but how rusty can it get before the thing becomes unridable?

When you can't ride it anymore. The brakes (if they're cantilever or v-brake) or the shifter cables will be the first to go.

I keep my shiny specialized in my room but the toys r us mtb with the knobbies I used to ride around during last week's blizzard's starting to rust through like there's no tomorrow. Chain's yellow, crank's yellow, rear hub's starting to yellow out...
There's salt all over the entire bike along with wet soggy snow right now, it's supposed to rain in the next few days, hopefully that'll rinse the salt off.
I keep that bike outside locked up next to a street sign 24/7, junker anyway, but how rusty can it get before the thing becomes unridable?


LMAO! When you can see the frame flexing... thats when you know to stop! :D

Hahaha. I'd ride the piss outta' it... let it be. See how rusty you CAN get it before it craps out. lol.... :roflmao:


-Matt

Haha alright then, I'm just wondering cause i don't want to be halfway through an intersection when i hit a pothole and WHAM, wheel falls off...

because the material is probably high strength steel (perhaps 4310 chromoly) it will fracture(fail) before it yields(plasticly) it will be very difficult to judge when the frame is going to fail. the rust will probably not cause the frame to flex(elastically) any more than it already is flexing. but i think that if it were to fail, it would fail immediately under applied high load, probably not likely to fail during the middle of a ride.

so i guess i agree with what dafydd said haha.

A totally rusted frame will fail on the drive-size chainstay, close to the bottom bracket. This is a place where water can gather . It can take several decades for a bike to rust enough to weaken a frame. I had one friend whose old 3 speed rusted through here. He cycled about 5 miles, feeling the bike was "funny" before he noticed the lose chainstay.

"chain's yellow, crank's yellow, cassette..."

your chain and gears might be yellow because you're not keeping them lubed up well enough. WD-40 isn't a good chain lube but it is a good rust-remover. it sounds like you ought to use WD-40 as chain oil for a little while (it won't harm anything on a rusty bike) and then keep your chain oiled with bicycle oil.

your frame (which is painted, i assume) is probably completely unharmed.

my toy-store-quality bikes do fine despite road salt, snow, rain, and all.

oh, and yes, i've let them get all rusty on the chains a few times by accident. which is easy to do since i have to keep them outside all the time, like your bike.

>>>>I keep that bike outside locked up next to a street sign 24/7, junker anyway, but how rusty can it get before the thing becomes unridable?<<<

My Pacific Toy store bike has been on the street since March. All the parts you described are rusted on mine but it's still riding. You'll probably have to replace the tires as they will blow or you'll just get flats. Those Toy store bikes come with the worse tires in the world.

The next thing you'll have to repair are the brakes. If you ride those MTB's like beach crusers, they should last you a long time.