This week Patria takes on a listener question about winter commuting as a substitute for no gym time. She runs down equipment choices, bike maintenance, route choice and more.
With Thanksgiving this week, Patrick has decided to take stock of the year and give some thought to what he’s grateful for, aside from the obvious, like little boys and good health. His answer surprised him.
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A few more items I should have mentioned, alas, material for another show, maybe:
1) Store your bike in a warm, dry place. A few reasons: Your hands are less likely to freeze if you start with warm handlebars. Warm saddle is a nice thing, too. Corrosion and rust will be much less prevalent on your components if your bike is warm and dry during the day and at home in the evening.
2) Fewer components are better so 1x drivetrains without front derailleurs are good. Cranksets with 1 chainring vs 2 are easier to wash off.
3) Get those disc brake calipers rinsed off while you’re rinsing the chain to get the salt off, salt on brake calipers can cause these to corrode and seize up over time.
4) Aside from the expense of electronic components and the premise that winter bikes shouldn’t use particularly expensive parts, since parts that get trashed from the winter need to be replaced, they work really well since a cable which could freeze and relies on mechanical action and little parts in levers that can be chewed apart with the mess the bike sees from winter, doesn’t have to be used. They just work and your perfect shifting stays this way.
Hi, Patria. Thanks for all of the great input! Just a couple of clarifications.
MTB is a 2001 with V-brakes. I’ve got 2.4s on it right now. Will look into same. Can’t lock it out but, I can fill the shocks with more air to take out some bounce. I’m assuming the roadsalt will be hell on those old shocks which, remarkably, still hold air. Transmission is a 3.9 – modern at the time I bought it! LOL Practically speaking, though, the big ring isn’t available. Shifter issues. I’ll probably just leave it in the middle ring.
CX bike currently has 40s on it but it’s the bike I care about more and will be less pleased to trash so, I’ll pull it off the road when the salt arrives.
Finally, regarding your comment about storing the bike in a warm dry place, i’m wondering, won’t that just invite moisture (humidity) into the parts? The bike will be freezing cold when I bring it in and moisture will condense on it as it warms to room temperature. If it stays frozen cold, I’d figure that things would be less likely to go through the freeze-thaw cycle and corrode things? (Maybe Padraig can ask one of his bike builders about this one?)
Happy Thanksgiving to both of you!
Hello Tom! See what you can do to speed up that bike with pumping up shocks and tires, and find out if being in the middle ring gets you to work on time! Since your CX bike takes 40mm tires, though you don’t want to trash it, you would be able to fit the Gravdals on there (the model I had seen specs of from that gen showed almost no clearance with what appeared to be 33mm tires). As for condensation, I see what you are thinking. Typically cold environments are damp too, so the wet would be on the bike. Warm dry environments, even with condensation, allow evaporation so less exposure and less rusting results. Happy Thanksgiving!!
Patria, it might be interesting to hear you talk about products that you wish customers WOULDN’T buy. Not that you sell junk, but sometimes what we think we want isn’t what we SHOULD buy. Do you have examples of bad match ups between people and equipment?
Hi John! This is a great idea! Yes, I see this all of the time. Will make a list and will present on a future show. It will be fun, thank you!!