Originally Posted by iceratt

I like the idea of using steal wool and then applying car wax. That said, I have ridden many winters in Minnesota on a Trek 520 and it hasn't turned into a rust bucket. I'm sure that there's some damage, but it still seems sound. I Switched to a fixed gear after replacing the drive train every two years, after it got destroyed by the sand and salt on the city roads. Once I had only one gear, however, I found it much harder to plow through moderately deep snow, because I didn't have those little gears!