Commuting in the dirt, chain cleaning?
I have done some searches on chain cleaning and it seems to be something of a religious war over in the mechanics forum, so I thought I would ask this here.
My 16 mile one way commute includes 8.5 miles of dirt, dust, gravel, loose sand, etc. If it's been dry a few days my bike gets filthy, especially the chain, on one round trip.
I started with a clean chain I had soaked in motor oil, bad plan got gross in a hurry. So I cleaned it and used ICE or something like that, this product was supposed to dry, then you rub off excess and it isn't supposed to attract dirt, that didn't work either. So I tried just wiping the dirt off with a rag and not re-greasing the chain again, and that worked ok for 2 round trips, but its a mess again. And of course its not just the chain, the cassette is full of junk too.
So for those that commute in the dirt:
what do you do?
how often?
how well does it work?
how long does it take?
I have full fenders on order, hopefully that will help.
Thanks