Consecutive bicycle work commute number 2249:
By the time I rode the fat bike home from work yesterday evening, all of the streets/paths on my route had been plowed. What remained was the hard pack layer of snow/ice that is affixed to the pavement and probably will remain there for months. The good news is, my other (non-fat) winter bike with studded tires will roll over this stuff just fine. So this snow event only required one day of fat bike riding.
After I got home from my evening activities, I went out into the garage and pulled the other winter bike down from storage so I could get it ready for the season (it's an old Giant mountain bike.) By this time of the night the temp was 9°F inside my garage. Note to self: I know you're busy, but figure out some possible way to do this task earlier in the fall when the garage temp is above 50°.
I expected the chain to be rusted, and my expectations were met and then some. The chain wasn't just rusty, it had become one solid piece of metal. I probably should have just dremeled the chain off the bike and replaced it, but I didn't have another chain on hand and I wanted to ride the bike in the morning. This chain was brand new last year and only had about 180 miles on it. That ice melt stuff they put on the roads absolutely destroys bare metal in a big hurry.
So, I soaked all the links of the chain in WD-40. Then I went link-by-link and broke them free and wiggled them back and forth until they were moving again without being stiff. It was slow going as the part of the chain that wraps around the jockey wheels and cassette was also rusted solid, preventing the chain from rotating. Extra WD-40 was sprayed into this section of chain to try to free them. As I went around the chain, many of the links were too seized for me to break them loose with my fingers, so I needed to use a couple pairs of pliers to get them moving. Once I had gone through every link, I then went back through and oiled each individual link of the chain and worked the oil into the joints. It took about an hour and my fingers were numb by the end of the session. But the chain was functional again, if not aesthetically pleasing.
It's probably sacrilige to some bike mechanics, but on my winter bikes I lube the chains with 30 weight motor oil thinned slightly with mineral spirits. Lighter oils will last about one single ride before the road chemicals strip them, and then I'm out in the garage in arctic temps re-oiling my chain. The motor oil will last 75-100 miles before re-oiling is needed, so it reduces the glacial grease affairs to about every week and a half. The downside is after a few lubrication sessions my chain looks like something that was found while cleaning up after the Exxon Valdez disaster. But my winter bikes are far from showpieces so I live with the mess.
This morning I woke up to an air temp of 4°F. This was actually better than the zero temp that was predicted when I went to bed the previous night. I took my mountain bike as planned, and immediately noticed how much less effort was required to pedal this bike compared to the fat bike. The same effort that it takes to maintain 5-6 mph on the fat bike will net me 9-10 mph on the mountain bike, even with the studded tires.
The single digit temps didn't feel as cold as I had anticipated. A lot of that was due to the fact that the wind was less than 5 mph. I dressed about right, as I arrived at the office slightly sweaty but not completely drenched.
One interesting thing to note: due to my current role in the theater production, at the moment I have a beard. I've never worn a beard (my wife hates them) so I don't have any experience with them while winter commuting. By the time I arrived at the office my mustache/beard was soaked with moisture, I'm assuming from my breath and other fluids running out of my nose. In the frigid temps it had all frozen solid. It was weird feeling this crunchy thing stuck to my face. So that's a new one for me.
Speaking of the theater performance, a small group of the featured performers are making a promotional appearance at 5:30 PM today. I get off work at 5:00, so I'm not going to have time to ride home before I have to be at the venue. So I'm going to change into my fancy clothes at the office and ride to the venue to do the promo appearance. Then afterwards I'm going to ride back to the office and change into my biking clothes for the remainder of the ride home. It's going to be a cold ride from the office to the venue and back without all my usual winter riding apparel. I also need to be extra careful about not letting any of my nice clothes touch the gunky drivetrain. Thankfully the venue is only about 3/4 mile from the office.