I have been off the bike for five weeks with a sore knee (no known reason, doctor gave me drugs and exercises), with the last commute being on a winter day in February. The bike has been parked in the garage since I got home that day. Yesterday I decided to take it out for a short trip to see if the knee could handle it.

I discovered that the chain had rusted into a solid rod.

When will I ever learn. I hosed it down with WD-40 to get it to bend enough so I could take it off, cleaned the casette and chainrings, and am off tonight to purchase a new chain, resolving once again to pay more attention to drive train maintenance.

was the chain THAT BAD???

i have had chains freeze up on my too but after getting them moving again they have been A OK. granted i discover mine after a week or 2 (usually on the rain bike that hasn't been ridden since it rained last).

i guess you could/should have oiled your chain before parking the bike for 5 months, but really i don't seee where you did anything wrong.

that's a tough one. I'm horrible about pre-storage maintenance myself.

How's the knee?

Well, it wasn't the case that every single link was immobilized by rust, but the two straight sections were pretty stiff and the whole thing was covered in rust. I had to use WD-40 and some pliers to get the straight parts to bend enough to get them through the little rollers in the derailer. Since a chain replacement is on my maintenance schedule for this spring anyway, I just took the whole thing off. I need the practice, since I am not Mr. Handyman.

They use a lot of salt on the roads in the winter here, so I've taken to just hosing down the chain with lube in December and it's usually good until February. Mind you, I use a lot of lube and don't bother to wipe the excess off. In the spring, I give it a rub with a rag to get the crap off, then go back to regular chain service.

Coming along, thank you, but not as fast as I had hoped. Today is the first day I can extend the right leg without some pain. The pain wasn't anything I couldn't take, but the problem was that riding a bike just kept hammering on some painful spot, resulting in worst pain. My sister-in-law, a licensed physical therapist, says the pain in this spot (near the inside edge of the kneecap) can be related to tight hamstrings, and she suggested some stretches which seem to help. Since it does seem to be getting better all the time, though slowly, I have hopes of a full recovery.

If the sister-in-law is correct, that means that we all should be paying attention to our flexibility as a matter of preventive maintenance. Generalizing from that, we should be looking ahead to other areas that might start to break down with age, and be planning preventive maintenance initiatives in those areas. That would be things like strengthening the legs to support the knees, strengthening the abdominals to support the back, flexibility of the spine, proper diet...all those things we know but might forget when we're feeling good.

I have never done premaintenance to my bikes before putting them away for winter I usually just let the air out of the tires and hang em from the rafters

Another option might have been to pop the chain into a few pieces with a chain tool to get it off, since you were going to trash the chain anyway.

I've taken some pretty messed up chains, cleaned them and relubed them and put them back into service, including one that didn't bend at all after just a weekend in the garage after a rain-over-salted-roads Friday ride.

That stinks, I almost had that happen to me just recently. When I was finally moved and settled I got a chance to look at my MTB after it had been sitting for a couple weeks, prior to regular snow duty over the winter. Poor chain had already started to rust, but after some attention with Simple Green and a toothbrush, then some ceramic lube it's back to normal. Amazing how all the squeaks went away!

In fact, I think I'm going to get that bike out on the trail tonight. Since buying my MTB I have been neglecting it something fierce.

Heh, happened to me. During the winter, I clean and lube the chain pretty much every day because of the slop that's on our roads. But recently, I forgot to get to it (I was in a hurry to pack for a trip), and when I came back a week later, that poor chain and cassette looked awful, with its coating of rust and salt. I cleaned it as best I could, and despite its appearance it's got plenty of life left.

Today was interesting, as it's getting much warmer around here, and the fair weather cyclists are coming out, including students whose bikes were left unattended outside for the entire season. More rust colored chains than you could shake a stick at.

I just had to replace my drive train and chain on one bike and will probably have to replace it on the others(chain). One of my goals this year is to learn how to do simple maintenance.


Gas, the price of a can of beans