I am in coastal Vietnam. Where I am staying the seawall is not effective against rough surf. In fact the surfaced beach road every high tide gets unindated with water to about 10 cm deep. I have to go through it. I thought it would give my Flamingo 7NX a good wash but now the chain and perhaps the gears sound gritty. Sand perhaps. I thought the internal gears would be hermetically sealed. Now I have my doubts.

Is paying one of the local pressure washer motorcycle washers a good idea?

Salt water absolutely destroys steel and most components. Pressure washing will blast even more oil and grease out of your moving parts and make things worse.

Wash the whole bike by hand with soap, rinse everything carefully with lots of fresh water, then re-oil the chain thoroughly. Spray light oil onto any other exposed steel that won't negatively affect the braking.

Yours , since you already have multiple complaints , daily, maybe not , its disposable quality as it stands , apparently .

It's a bike for God's sake...not a boat!

And nay nay on the high pressure washers.

Salt water and sand...you couldn't find anything worse for wearing out parts on your bike and creating more rust than I'd care to think about. Any pressurized water for washing isn't a good thing either. Just using fresh water via a hose to try and flush as much sand/salt water off of the bike will better serve you. If you have an air compressor handy, a quick "dusting" of the chain should help, but don't blow any air towards wheel bearings or the bottom bracket. then a wipe of the chain and quick re-lubing will help a bad situation until the next drenching. If there are other local riders in the neighborhood, ask them their "secrets" for making their bicycles safe against the seawater and sand. They may have a few tricks up their sleeves.

Do you have to go far through the flooded part? I would definitely consider carrying the bike.

Aluminum can definitely be harmed by salt water; 7005 more so than 6061.

Whenever you rinse a bike do it gently so as not to drive grit into moving parts. Water can also get in and ruin the grease.

If you take the bike home with you after this adventure, consider repacking the ball bearings in the hubs, bottom bracket, and headset with fresh grease especially if the bike's not sealed. The grease on a bike without sealed hubs will trap grit somewhat but it will eventually circulate its way in to the moving parts. Readjusting the bearings properly is critical.

Of course. Salt water will damage any machine. Bike is no different. If you ride through seawater regularly, you should consider your bike to be disposable.

Thank you all for your timely and helpful replies. I will cancel hiring the local motorcycle washers and if he can't do it by hand, bag it until I find a bike pro in Hanoi. I stay in hotels and have no bike washing facilities. I am disappointed to hear that bicycles are hardly indestructible against the elements! I knew there was a risk and so whenever possible rode on cement embankment further up slope. However, I also figured ' hey, I'm not going to treat my bicycle like a debutante, shielded from harsh realities of the real world in developing countries. Automobiles, motorcycles, trucks, buses, tanks move through the ocassional rain or flood or seawater. I can't be treating this vehicle like it's made of silk and gold.

But now I hear strange sounds...

It is extremely important to pay Extra attention to Any parts that have different types of metal in close contact. An example would be steel and aluminum, such as the bottom bracket spindle and crank arm, pedal axle into crank arm, aluminum water bottle cage into steel frame, aluminum rack struts held with steel screws, steel spokes going into brass nipples and aluminum hub flanges, brass nipples into alloy rims, steel saddle rails and ALU seat clamp plus steel clamp screw/s. The list goes on and on. You must try to dilute the salt by flooding the bike with fresh water, RESIST the Temptation to force the salt out with focused streams of water. With the heat and humidity I remember of 'Nam from my "Tour" there in the late 60s, corrosion was as ferocious a battle as any military action.

Pressure washers are just fine for bikes. Just keep the nozzle a couple of feet away. Ever see how they wash bikes at a CX race??

I am sure the bike mechanic professional Anton at 10 Hong Bong in Hanoi will be able to advise or have his staff minimize damage. The Vietnamese are the technicians of SEA.

At this seaside resort rather like Pattaya for Hanoians the manager at a restaurant with benefits, at whose establishment I was well distracted two days ago, today he waved my missing coaster wheel at me as I passed. So missing part found!

Ever see what they do to the bikes after the race? Headsets, BBs, and wheel bearings are removed, inspected, and regreased. Chains are cleaned and lubed after every race (and still seldom last more than a season). The pressure washers are used because they're expedient and the side effects will be corrected after the race -- not because they're particularly good for the bike.

This. You beat me to it. Thank you.

In a word yes!!!!!

Based on your posts I'd say don't worry about it. You will get a new bike soon.

Just living in an area the is near saltwater is pretty rough on metal components. I wouldn't imagine you would do any better with more than just a rinse from the freshwater hose after each ride.

Salt is a preservative, no worries

I just finished cleaning a bike that got dunked in ocean water. Sand everywhere. I had to take everything apart including the shifters to get the sand out. The salt will wash off/out with a hose. The sand requires disassembly.

I think when I get to Bangkok in a week I will get the major sensitive parts of the bike disassembled. Why? I notice a sound I didn't before but only when coasting (not when pedalling). Maybe it was there before and I never noticed. I also see new paint chipping, rusty parts I never noticed before and even the removable aluminim pedals (they fix in against steel) have a rusty colour in this closed-in area where they snap in. They were never easy to get on and of, one a struggle. Now, both were a struggle. Why didn't the mechanic remove, clean and dry?

I'm disappointed in Anton's staff. I explained I had been at the seaside and I wanted my bike cleaned. I suppose there is cleaned and CLEANED! I meant to eliminate/reduce any possible damage from sea air, sea water and sea sand from four days. At the shop at pick up I took the seat post out, ran my finger inside and found crud. So I sent it back for a cloth to be pulled from top to bottom. I heard a lot of air hose for fifteen minutes. Doing this plus multiple other adjustments was only VND200,000 (USD10) but I don't want cheap, I want good. Maybe to get good workmanship you need to tip in Vietnam. The assistant manager told me that everybody's bike in Vietnam rusts (implication: 'Get used to it'). He also insinuated that I was being ridiculous expecting the bike to be wiped dry, as in five minutes it would dry in the semi- tropical heat of May anyway.

I had the same disappointment at a Hanoi denstist, where a teeth cleaning is $10. I told them explicitly and written in Vietnamese: 'Twenty minutes is not enough time to do a thorough job. Please take whatever time is necessary and charge me accordingly' . Even then the dentist did a rush job. Likewise with the 'cleaning' I didn't quite get an artisinal job with a toothbrush (which is what I would use doing it myself). Even after complaining I see various parts w/ very fine white powder - clearly salt.

This whole experience strikes me as very weird though. When I was a kid in Vancouver we took our bikes to the beach. I don't remember a problem.

Correction: Like a DEA agent, I tasted the fine white powder. It is not salt. I speculate it is dust or some chemical reaction of bicycle metal with sea/city air.

I'm afraid "Anton" did you and more importantly your bike no favors, re: the "15 minute air hose" job.
Pressurized air FOCUSED and CONCENTRATED by the nozzle of the airhose is As Bad as as a Pressure Washer.
Blasting contaminates off the surface and deep into gaps between parts, forcing grit and remnant water thru any seals and/or lubricant barriers (one hopes the salt and other soluble minerals were Gently diluted, and Flowed away with copious amounts of fresh water, Before application of the air hose nozzle).
Galvanic corrosion is a chemical reaction, accelerating with increase in temperature. In tropical, heat, humidity, with the addition of proximity to the ocean and dissimilar metals in close contact... As I've said before, literally, it can be Ferocious.
Maybe Voracious is a better descriptor.
Oh! ... Ferociously Voracious .... perfect.

If seawater w/ the associated fine sand and salt gets into a cartridge bearing, I think it would be pretty hard to fully remove it.

^^^ This^^^
The residue of aluminum corrosion is a white powder. Most likely a result of salt spray from surf action and your front wheel coating that lloonngg seatpost then running down said post, then wicking inside the frame thru capillary action. By the way this happens wherever there is break or opening in the bicycles frame (I note that the brake and shifter cables are routed Inside the frame) the usual way to combat this infiltration is a liberal coating of the most tenacious waterproof grease you can find (Marine wheel bearing grease is my choice. formulated for boat trailer wheel bearings). As a previous poster stated above, certain alloys of aluminum used for bikes are Very susceptible to salt corrosion.

Aha, so there is another *disadvantage* to aluminum!

Hope those 4 pictures were valuable to you ..


They are repainting the Bridge , out my window, across the Columbia, with a Paint with a good amount of Zinc in it .

In the shipyard we added Zinc ingots inside the ballast tanks , seawater dissolves the sacrificial Zn

and attacks the Steel of the Ship Hull, less.