how does one prevent or deal with this sort of rust?

Steel wool, framesaver or other coating.

You rode around in the rain and didn't wipe your bike down didn't you?

i did but i guess i did not spend enough time doing it

shoot it with some WD40.
good idea to hit your track nuts while you're at it.

Avoid smoking your smushed cigarettes while applying WD40.

rotflmao

It's trivial rust. Cope with corrosion in this imperfect and chaotic world.

yeah, what's the deal with rust on bikes in general? i am very diligent about keeping my bikes clean and drying them off when it rains, yet still i get rust. how bad is it for the bike? do i need to steel wool it off asap, or is it just "trivial"?

some oil, grease, whatever.... i wouldn't shoot tons of wd-40 all over that close to my wheel bearings but that might just be me.

Rust = Street cred.

Rust = inevitable when you've got iron and water and oxygen together. People are very skittish about a bit of rust. Track nuts chew up dropouts, so the paint always comes off. If it's a steel dropout, and you've not sprung for the bling stainless or chrome option, then the exposed metal will rust.

If it ain't eating into your metal, it's fine. When you clean the bike - whenever that is, probably about March now if you're like me (!) - just rub the clean, dry rust with an oily rag. You can use Kurust or a similar product if you like, but I stick with oil and rubbing. It's universally good..

can you use some type of sealer after you clean it up? like brush on some clear nail polish. it would be easy to break when you need to move the wheel, but would keep it from rusting in the meantime, wouldn't it?

Rusty Dropouts = great name for a character (possibly someone on the periphery of the Archie's gang, e.g. OR someone's "punk" name, especially if they were in a band called The Dropouts)