GORP - Winter Bike Maintenance


	Keep Your Ride Running
	Start the Season Off Right
	Quick and Dirty


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ACTIVITIES

Winter Bike Maintenance
Quick and Dirty
By Chain Gang Expert Biker Dennis Coello

Bike commuter riding through Salt Lake City

Keep on rollin'

Now stick with it through the season —"It" is the clean-and-lube routine. I manage to stick with it only because I've got the whole process down to ten minutes flat. Honest. Working fast, I can whisk my bike clean (the wax helps to keep the dirt from adhering), wipe off the wet, clean my chain with it still on the bike, and lube every place that needs it after a slushy ride. It's a fast ten minutes and I can't say it's fun, but it's great to know that the next morning when I need it, the bike is ready to roll.

My method of cleaning the chain is to spread newspaper beneath the rear derailleur; then, elevating the rear wheel with a shop stand (those metal stands that shops use to hold up bikes on showroom floors), I hold a stiff-bristle brush at the derailleur pulley and turn the crankarms backward. Some riders prefer to use the snap-on chain cleaners, but most often in winter I find that my chain needs to be de-gunked and de-grimed, not degreased. That is, my method removes the foreign bits but leaves the lubricant. Or most of it, anyway. If I hear metal on metal after this I apply a single drop of lube to each roller, turn the crankarms a few times, and end by holding a lightly oiled rag around the chain and spinning the cranks another turn.

The sealed bearings present on most bikes these days do a lot to reduce winter's toll and thus the necessary maintenance. If the cold is terribly bitter in your neck of the woods, you stand a chance of suffering some freewheel-freehub sluggishness, in which case you'd have to repack them with lighter or special low-temperature grease. But chances are you'll never have to worry.

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