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Old 06-16-20, 10:33 PM
  #28  
DropBarFan
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Bikes: 2013 Surly Disc Trucker, 2004 Novara Randonee , old fixie , etc

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Originally Posted by djb
with my winter commuting, I have a clear routine that I force myself to do.
pull in garage, I have a bucket I put soapy water in, I use a wide car washing soft bristle brush more than a foot wide to quickly wash down both sides of bike, chain rings, cables, rims, side of tires etc
I then wipe the chain with old towels I have, this gets all the water, dirt, salt and crap off it well, I wipe chainrings with rag, rd, jockey wheels etc, and then spray wd40 on chain in 12t while turning pedals.
Do this every day, but I'm fast and don't mess around. 5 mins maybe, maybe a bit more.
wd40 isn't an ideal chain lube, but for yucky conditions like this, I figured I'd try it, and you know what, it works really well. No rust, daily wiping keeps gunge from accumulating, and I figure the water dispersing wd thing is good for chain.

salt on roads is a given, and worst thing is riding through wet roads, even at -10c, cuz it's wet because of heavy salt concentration in it, so really really salty water going over bike. This is why I wash it with liberal water, always wipe the lower cables under frame bb, and dry and wipe with old towel quickly.
I'm always surprised by how well this all works. I'm very fond of my old mountain bike that I use in winter, so making the daily effort is fine by me, and it simply is very effective.
I'm lucky at this moment to have a garage, so I can be sloppy and shoot water all over, but no biggee.
WD-40 might work nicely to clean chains on a tour when it's too cold to wash with water. 1 gallon is surprisingly cheap so (unlike with expensive chain lubes) one could use a generous amount to rinse & scrub chain. AFAIK to reduce drag/wear cleanliness is more important than having the optimal lube. I once read a motorcycling post by a guy who claimed to get insane mileage just by frequent cleaning with WD-40.
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