If you ride in the rain/snow at all, you know that water can collect in a few different places on your bicycle and can cause these spots to rust. A thorough wipe down after every ride is the best way to prevent this. The stem's quill bolt is a place that I often forget, and I found my stock stem had the inside of the allen bolt rust right out.

I had been looking for a while and found the perfect stem for my bike a few weeks ago, and I wanted to protect it. When I was a bicycle courier back in the day, we used to put hot glue into most of the allen bolt holes and drop a ball bearing in to make stealing components a bit more difficult. This time around, I used some of this GOOP adhesive:



And instead of a ball bearing, I found these little aluminum screw/bolt caps at a hardware store:





The cap diameter was almost an exact match to the stem opening and the mirror finish looked great. They were $0.84 CAD each I believe. The plug part was too small, so I used some pliers/cutters and spread it apart to make it wider:



It was a good fit after this, snug enough without the adhesive, but the GOOP kept it securely in place and added the water proofing I was looking for. A little bit of aluminum polish and it had a mirror finish and looks subtle and not too out of place on this sweet Sakae Ringyo stem:



Any one else come up with any clever ways of customizing/protecting your frame or components from winter weather in order to keep riding your favorite bikes all year?