Originally Posted by
ortcutt
Thanks for the replies. Perhaps I've underestimated the scourge of road salt. I live around the corner from a DOT "barn" piled high with the stuff, so I'm aware of it; and our roads received a good bit of it over the winter -- but probably little in comparison with you folks in Canada and the Upper Midwest. Does road salt accelerate the wear on your drivetrain and other components in a way that you can't control by regular cleaning and maintenance? (As I suggested in my original post, I'm not sure I'd want to keep a bike I didn't feel motivated to do regular maintenance on.)
It's not just the salt, - that's not very effective once it gets below 15 degrees. They put heaps of sand on the roads too. To minimize the effects you have to go well beyond what I would consider regular cleaning and maintenance. Like I said in my first post, I do more maintenance on my winter bike, not less, and still I end up having to replace stuff more often. The other problem regarding maintenance is that it's more of pain to do in the winter. Working on a bike when even the temp in the garage is below freezing isn't always fun.
Given all that, I've been keeping an eye on belt drive bikes. They don't make one yet that I'd consider a good winter bike for my purposes but a Trek Soho isn't far off. Something with internal gearing, roller brakes, and a belt would save me a lot of winter related maintenance headaches. It needs to have clearance for at least a 40 mm tire and fenders though. So if such a bike comes a long, it may be that my winter beater becomes the newer and more expensive of my two bikes.