Road salt and drivetrain maint

[Tom]

The roads are covered with white stuff and it ain't snow. Other than rinsing the bike a lot and lubricating the chain often, are there any tricks or miracle compounds I should use to protect all the little things going round and round?

[Brian Smith]

That's the chief reason that I use strictly titanium chains on all of my bikes.
Just kidding.
Road salt is deadly on bicycles, I hate it.
With all the aggressive plowing around here, and the availabiility of fantastic winter tires, I loathe the salt solution.

For my chains and salt slurry drivetrain maintenance, I recommend a chain that you can readily remove, and a place where you can scrub them that won't cause affront to your cohabitants. Protectants prolong the inevitable, but cleaning is the only thing that removes the salt.

That's my $.02 Tom, maybe someone has a miracle goo that lasts as long from winter to mid-spring, at which time the salt will have been scraped or blown off the roadsides. Heck, even half that term would be nice, eh?

[vandeda]

The road salt and grime up here is one of the main reasons I went fixed gear .... less parts that go round and round .... and the parts are dirt cheap.

Given that, I must admit I don't do too much special. Clean the chain every once in awhile and lube it up liberally so it's got a nice coat of lube. Seems to work well enough.

[fierte_poser]

The road salt and grime up here is one of the main reasons I went fixed gear .... less parts that go round and round .... and the parts are dirt cheap.

Given that, I must admit I don't do too much special. Clean the chain every once in awhile and lube it up liberally so it's got a nice coat of grease. Seems to work well enough.

You put *grease* on your chain?!? :confused:

[vandeda]

errr .... sorry .... been working on cars too much recently ....

lube ... lube the chain liberally.

[fierte_poser]

Also, I don't know how you protect your frame, but if its painted/clearcoated I would recommend using Zaino (the more coats the better, but after 3 you get into diminishing returns.) I'm a bit of an auto detailing nut and this stuff lasts! Not sure if its strong enough to keep salt away from the paint/clearcoat, but if anything will, this is the stuff.

http://www.zainostore.com

[fierte_poser]

errr .... sorry .... been working on cars too much recently ....

lube ... lube the chain liberally.

That's ok... just giving you a hard time. :beer:

Slightly OT, there was a letter to the editor in Car and Driver several years ago where the writer was b!tching about Car and Driver referring to the engine in a car as a motor. The writer explained that motors are run by electricity, such as the power window motors, the windshield wiper motor, the ac blower motor, etc, while the thing under the hood with the pistons was an internal combustion *engine*. Thus, Car and Driver should stop using the term motor when they really meant engine.

The editor replied something to the effect: 'Will do. By the way, what brand *motor* oil do you use in your engine?' ;)

[vandeda]

nice .... that's awesome.

funny about Zaino's ... I've used the stuff ... Z2. It's pink like bubble gum, and for some odd reason I always thought that it smelled just a little bit like bubble gum.

[Peter P.]

From what I understand, rust is created only within a very narrow temperature range which I think is about 40 degrees F. Therefore, you shouldn't have to worry about salt damage when it's colder, or warmer.

My personal experience from year 'round commuting in New England is the road salt doesn't damage my steel bike. If it gets excessively grungy from a commute, I just hose it off with fresh water when I get home and using a brush, swipe off the big stuff; I also squirt Simple Green on the rims to scrub off brake dust.

I found using a parafin/dry lube on the chain helped a lot in keeping it clean, though I had to lube more often because water and dry lubes don't get along well. Dry lubes will prevent the chain from picking up grit and sand, thus reducing wear.

[fierte_poser]

From what I understand, rust is created only within a very narrow temperature range which I think is about 40 degrees F. Therefore, you shouldn't have to worry about salt damage when it's colder, or warmer.

Hmmm... I'm no chemist, but my spidey sense is tingling after reading that.

[djg]

I haven't been in a really northern clime for a while, but I'd think that there's no real substitute for hosing the stuff off with some regularity--the salt's both corrosive and abrasive, and neither helps your frame or your drivetrain. It may also be useful to keep the frame waxed and, as much as I like pro-link, to switch to some sort of wax-based lube for the snow/salt season--I shouldn't think these would be impervious to salt, but I reckon they'd help a bit.

[djg]

From what I understand, rust is created only within a very narrow temperature range which I think is about 40 degrees F. Therefore, you shouldn't have to worry about salt damage when it's colder, or warmer.

.

And this is why things never rust in the tropics? Yer kiddin', right?

[Tom]

It rained a little here, I hope that helped. Fun ride this morning in the fog, it was like riding the trainer outside. All you could see was what was in the cone of your headlight. It was just at freezing so the frost sparkled. Nice.

I'm awfully glad I don't care about skiing any more. I feel bad for those that do.

[Elmer]

Copied and pasted from http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/chem03/chem03046.htm

"Rust" is really a family of iron/oxygen compounds with various ratios of: Fe, O, and H (as in water).
All the "rusting" reactions are exothermic to the tune of from about -60 to -190 kcal/mol That is they
all liberate a substantial amount of heat. In fact one can generalize that for most metals oxidation
is exothermic. Now the "activation" energy to which you refer has to do with just how "fast" the
reaction occurs. In the case of iron. Do not have the numbers in front of me but from qualitative
observation I would expect it is quite small because rust occurs about equally fast at any reasonable
temperature interval.