Originally Posted by
medic75
And so it begins. I didn't bother to check the weather before leaving this morning and rode the wrong bike :My only hope is that it doesn't get bad enough that they begin to put salt on the roads.
I don't want to expose this bike to any of that crap.That is why I bought a winter beater.
On a more serious note, you may find this thread on the Winter Cycling Forum interesting, "Carbon bike in winter":
Originally Posted by
cj19
OP here. Have spent more time searching for info and come to the following conclusions:
- Lots of references to how CF holds up on aircraft and spacecraft. That pretty clearly tells us what CF can do in a billion dollar application, but it doesn't tell us how my $3500 CF bike will hold up. Saying it's the same thing is like saying that a condom can carry 10 people across the lake just like a Boston Whaler because both are made of polyurethane (don't try that at home).
- What little I did find about CF and temperature focused more on the potential for issues due to overheating, which in theory would affect the resin at some point. Cross riding into a volcano off the bucket list.
- Did not find a single mention of "I rode my CF bike in the Minnesota winter and it cracked in half" or any similar story. So it appears that the CF itself is not really a concern...
- ...but Tim's point on ice and crashing is really applicable here. It's not unusual in the winters around here to be cruising on dry roads and run across a patch of ice. Any crash to a CF bike is not good.
- I didn't mention the additional challenge of salt and chemical mixtures used on roads, but the conclusion is probably the same. CF is probably not the concern but other bike parts might be?
I'm turning the Trek into an indoor trainer as soon as we start getting winter precipitation, and will ride the Salsa.
Originally Posted by
alias5000
On salt and corrosion: this is a topic commonly discussed here. Some ideas on how to better deal with this:
- Store the bike inside
- Regularly already it down (after each ride). No house for that? Use a $15 hand pump garden sprayer
- Replace steel parts with stainless steel our aluminum parts, as much as feasible.
- Fenders AND mudflaps. Particular long ones on the front to avoid spray against the bottom bracket
- There are chains with a corrosion protective coating. I'm running one of them without issues, but I'm unsure if the chain can be attributed to that.
- Lube... really thick stuff will attract loss of gunk... I personally use very thin stuff and lube often (prolink). But still try wax based lines next when current bottle is empty.
Originally Posted by
Jim from Boston
…For Winter however, from about mid-December to late February at the earliest, I entirely use the beater, always with studded tires on.
Last edited by Jim from Boston; 11-11-18 at 04:21 PM.