WIRED> how to winterize your bike

http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Winterize_Your_Bicycle

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Permalink Reply by Duppie on January 3, 2011 at 10:26am

There you go. Problem solved. Not sure why all that arguing was needed.

 

Of course, now you need to be concerned about a certain Chainlink member peeing on your Hummer's rims


James Baum said:

I'll just take the Hummer.

Duppie said:

It's a solution in search of a problem.

On days that the roads are unrideable unless you have snow tires (how many do we really have in the city of Chicago? 5-10 a year?), take public transit. Problem solved.

Permalink Reply by Far'arned Retrogrumpalunkus #63 on January 3, 2011 at 10:29am

I dunno, maybe it is me.  I'm an electrician by trade and have cut off and installed literally THOUSANDS of zip-ties in my career -many of them with gloves on.

 

It's not a big deal.  If it were a big deal to operate a pair of "dikes" (excuse the language) to snip a plastic tie with gloves on or even put a new zip-tie together with gloves on then maybe the coordination to change a tire is also beyond them.

 

seriously -snipping a tire full of ties would take like 30 seconds.  It'd take more time to clean up the mess (give a hoot -don't pollute!) when you were done.

 

Ryan L said:

It's bad enough changing a flat when it's 10 degrees outside. I can't imagine the extra time it would take with your gloves off to put on more zip ties not to mention if you f-ed up and get a second flat after all that work. Just doesn't seem logical to me. 

Permalink Reply by Far'arned Retrogrumpalunkus #63 on January 3, 2011 at 10:35am
I meant, not even getting out of bed when it is snowing/icing that bad.  What are you talking about?

Duppie said:

There you go. Problem solved. Not sure why all that arguing was needed.

 

Of course, now you need to be concerned about a certain Chainlink member peeing on your Hummer's rims


James Baum said:

I'll just take the Hummer.

Duppie said:

It's a solution in search of a problem.

On days that the roads are unrideable unless you have snow tires (how many do we really have in the city of Chicago? 5-10 a year?), take public transit. Problem solved.

Permalink Reply by Martin Hazard on January 3, 2011 at 12:03pm
I question much of the wisdom this guy offers. Fat knobby tires for the snow? WD-40? Zip ties? And why does he look so happy with his clearly unprepared bike in the picture? I doubt his advice is based on actual experience.
Permalink Reply by Juan 2-3 or more mi. on January 3, 2011 at 4:10pm
I'll make sure to eat lots of asparagus!

Duppie said:

There you go. Problem solved. Not sure why all that arguing was needed.

 

Of course, now you need to be concerned about a certain Chainlink member peeing on your Hummer's rims


James Baum said:

I'll just take the Hummer.

Duppie said:

It's a solution in search of a problem.

On days that the roads are unrideable unless you have snow tires (how many do we really have in the city of Chicago? 5-10 a year?), take public transit. Problem solved.

Permalink Reply by Doug Haynes on January 4, 2011 at 7:17am

No joke, WD40 has no use when it comes to bikes and if you keep it well lubed with decent lubes you won't have things getting stiff on you.

 


Martin Hazard said:

I question much of the wisdom this guy offers. Fat knobby tires for the snow? WD-40? Zip ties? And why does he look so happy with his clearly unprepared bike in the picture? I doubt his advice is based on actual experience.
Permalink Reply by Far'arned Retrogrumpalunkus #63 on January 4, 2011 at 9:46am

WD40 has no use as a bicycle LUBRICANT.

 

But like the name signifies, it makes a decent Water-Displacer and does a fine job of pushing water away from bare metal parts on a bicycle  if you use enough of it and as long as you aren't washing away any necessary grease or other actual LUBRICANT as WD-40 makes a very GOOD degreaser and an extremely POOR lubricant once it dissolves and washes away what was there before.

 

To say it has NO use is not correct though -it's just that the use is totally different than what most people think it should be used for.

 

WD-40 is an EXTREMELY poor lubricant and is about the worst thing you can do to any bearing surface that needs lubrication because it washes away any lubricant that was supposed to be there in the first place and eventually will leave it with none.

 

notoriousDUG said:

No joke, WD40 has no use when it comes to bikes and if you keep it well lubed with decent lubes you won't have things getting stiff on you.

 


Martin Hazard said:

I question much of the wisdom this guy offers. Fat knobby tires for the snow? WD-40? Zip ties? And why does he look so happy with his clearly unprepared bike in the picture? I doubt his advice is based on actual experience.
Permalink Reply by Ryan L on January 4, 2011 at 10:02am

"At the very least, keep all the moving parts clean and well-lubed. Bike lubricant doesn't just keep the parts from sticking, it also cleans and protects the parts from corrosion. If you ride with a backpack, carry a can of WD-40. If parts start seizing up, apply a liberal dose of the stuff."

 

Here is the problem James, obviously you are learned enough to know how to use this stuff but most people aren't. This article is misleading and doesn't go into enough detail about long term issues concerning the very info it states. I use WD-40 to remove rust from chrome parts as well as a way to remove grips if all else fails but I know that I need to remove 100% of it before regreasing the parts I used it to clean with. Most people think WD-40 is a lubricant and this article furthers the confusion.

 

I can totally see someone without much knowledge of bikes reading this article for what it's worth and not realizing they could be causing more problems down the road then needed. This is why i hate the internet sometimes; quantity over quality.

Permalink Reply by Far'arned Retrogrumpalunkus #63 on January 4, 2011 at 11:19am

Oh, I agree. The article seemed to me to be pretty low on the tech/knowledge curve but didn't want to slam on it myself as I figured I was just being a bit too wrenchy/picky.

 

If there is one thing I've noticed about nearly every aspect of the mainstream media is that when it comes to anything I have any specific knowledge about they invariably get it wrong.  I can only assume they are getting the other stuff wrong that I don't know so much about to catch them at it.

 

Reporters and magazine writers all pretty much do just enough research to make a story believable -not to make it right.

 

 

Permalink Reply by judy s on January 8, 2011 at 4:21am
Frozen Hand brake, When i have my bike inside the hand brake on the left side is ok, but as soon as i go outside it freezes up.  My right side is fine, what is the solution?? Also didn't realize that my bikes could get ruined by riding them in such weather.  What kind of bikes do they use in Norway/Netherlands.  Thats all they ride is a bike year round???
Permalink Reply by Kevin C Dormant on January 8, 2011 at 4:46am

If your brake freezes up when you're outside, there's moisture in the line. Remove the inner cable, dry it and lube it. Shoot some WD-40 down the empty cable housing to get the moisture out, let both dry. Replace inner cable into cable housing and the freezing problem should be eliminated.

 

Damage to bikes in the winter is not uniquely a Chicago problem, but it's worse here. Very few municipalities (or states or countries?) spread salt down like they do in Chicago. (Google "Jane Byrne v. Michael Bilandic 1979"). Most of the frame or component damage is going to come from accumulated salt, not exposure to cold or moisture. During the winter, you need to give your bike a sponge bath every week or so to remove the salt which is going to collect on it. Clean and/or lube your chain weekly. Bringing your bike inside overnight should also assist in letting everything dry out. 

 

Dutch bikes are typically steel, though some are aluminum. They have no more resistance to the elements than "American (Korean)" bikes, they simply have less exposure to the corrosive effects of road salt.

judy s said:

Frozen Hand brake, When i have my bike inside the hand brake on the left side is ok, but as soon as i go outside it freezes up.  My right side is fine, what is the solution?? Also didn't realize that my bikes could get ruined by riding them in such weather.  What kind of bikes do they use in Norway/Netherlands.  Thats all they ride is a bike year round???
Permalink Reply by Far'arned Retrogrumpalunkus #63 on January 8, 2011 at 2:09pm

If you are going to use WD to drive out water you have to use enough of it to actually flush out the other end otherwise it just isn't going to do any good.  Even so, it takes much more than most people realize -enough to make a mess at the other end.

 

Then follow up with something with actual lubrication properties in it.  I'm a fan of Slick-50 1-lube.  That stuff has teflon an other very slippery stuff which I'm sold on.  I use it in clock mainsprings when I'm doing horological work and it works so much better than any other oil I've used it can make a 30-day clock run for nearly a month and a half  after the mainspring is removed, cleaned, and re-lubed with 1-lube (and doing a full service on the movement -of course) The spring is able to run that much further before stiction stops it -and power the clock much further than the designers ever dreamed of with old-fashioned clock lubes. 

 

Works great in cables.  And keeps the moisture from coming back in. 

 

This is much easier if you can just pull the cable out of the housing and treat them separately if you have the tools and know-how to do that.   That way you can just blow through the housing with the WD and the 1-lube  rather than messing around trying to get past the cable in the way.   Then just wipe down the cable itself before putting it back together.

 

I use 1-lube for everything that most people would use WD for -it's a 1000x better product.

 

Kevin Conway said:

If your brake freezes up when you're outside, there's moisture in the line. Remove the inner cable, dry it and lube it. Shoot some WD-40 down the empty cable housing to get the moisture out, let both dry. Replace inner cable into cable housing and the freezing problem should be eliminated.

 

Damage to bikes in the winter is not uniquely a Chicago problem, but it's worse here. Very few municipalities (or states or countries?) spread salt down like they do in Chicago. (Google "Jane Byrne v. Michael Bilandic 1979"). Most of the frame or component damage is going to come from accumulated salt, not exposure to cold or moisture. During the winter, you need to give your bike a sponge bath every week or so to remove the salt which is going to collect on it. Clean and/or lube your chain weekly. Bringing your bike inside overnight should also assist in letting everything dry out. 

 

Dutch bikes are typically steel, though some are aluminum. They have no more resistance to the elements than "American (Korean)" bikes, they simply have less exposure to the corrosive effects of road salt.

judy s said:

Frozen Hand brake, When i have my bike inside the hand brake on the left side is ok, but as soon as i go outside it freezes up.  My right side is fine, what is the solution?? Also didn't realize that my bikes could get ruined by riding them in such weather.  What kind of bikes do they use in Norway/Netherlands.  Thats all they ride is a bike year round???

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