Originally Posted by
tjspiel
It was almost new after a winter on the salt filled roads of Minneapolis but the salt used in Copenhagen was destroying the frame after 3 months?
Sorry, I find that a little hard to believe. Perhaps the rust problems started well before you left MN and just weren't visible yet. Anyway, that is one reason my bike has an aluminum frame. Still, lots of people commute year round on steel bikes without them disintegrating. Leaving the bike outside in the cold might be preferable as it slows down the corrosion.
I think that it is really easy to think that Minneapolis uses a lot of salt...and that is what I thought when I moved there from Oregon...But...the reality is that as much as I was shocked at the salt coming from OR to MSP, I was shocked at how much more salt CPH uses than MSP. I also think that the weather pattern is way worse...but I was thinking about it and here is a comparison:
MSP commute:
One block on the road until I hit the Parkway and then Greenline the rest of the way to work.
Surface: smooth asphalt
salt use: moderate
bike care: kept in underground parking garage and sprayed down regularly in the car wash stall then towel dry and lube
CPH commute:
mix of bike paths, cobble stones, etc.
surface: varied, but some areas that are very rough
salt use: low on roads, but very high on bike paths
bike care: kept outside wipe down with cloth and lube, no access to running fresh water
I think the problem is that the Danes use more salt in copenhagen than is used in Minneapolis...which actually makes sense because you are dealing with a constant freeze thaw cycle (pretty much every day) versus minneapolis, which salts after a big snow fall, but after that there really wasn't much salt applied to the greenway and parkway...and the other problem is that I can't rinse the salt off here. so it builds up and then the freeze thaw cycle just makes that problem worse...