The Mountains Turn Blue When the Bike is Cold

This weekend thankfully brought two days of non-Arctic temperatures and as a result I found ample opportunity to thoroughly clean off my bike and address some of the wear and tear from the prior week of hellish commuting. I generally consider myself an avid bike maintainer. Sure I'll have a moment where my chain gets a little cruddy, or I forget to check my tire pressure before heading out on a ride. But normally I respect and appreciate the value of routine bike maintenance. However, after a sub-zero ride home in the dark over ice and snow, nose dripping with snot, eyelids frozen open, cheeks burning the last thing I want to do is grab a wet towel and brush and spend a half hour scrubbing my bike. Over the past week I attempted to "make due" with some spray on bike cleaner and a quick brushing; admittedly this was quite half assed. I also rode with a noticeable wobble in my rear tire thinking that at some point it might warm enough to spend the time in the garage truing the wheel. Surveying the damage on Saturday (in daylight, with my teeth not chattering and rattling my eyes around in my skull) I certainly had not done enough and the state of my bike verged closely on neglect. The crud factor reached an impressive height and the wobbly wheel wasn't just out of true, I'd broken a spoke. 

As I set about making my repairs and scrubbing mag-chloride off my bike, I pondered the effects of cold weather on bikes. "What the hell is all this crap on my bike really doing to it?" "Why did my spoke break? Was it the cold causing excess tension in the wheel?" "How else might Mother Nature be trashing my old Cannondale?" One can find plenty of blogs and articles to offer suggestions on how the intrepid winter rider should protect his or herself while riding in the cold, but there are few articles which discuss the physical effects of the cold on bicycles. Aside from the reminder about proper maintenance and cleaning, I could not recall having ever seen anything explicit about protecting the bike from winter elements.

With my curiosity peaked I sat down to a bit o’ web browsing and tried to find information about what physically or technically happens to bikes in the cold: the resulting pickins were kind of slim. Nonetheless here are some of the insights I gleaned.

From the folks at http://www.icebike.org/

• Cold Bearings and grease are stiffer and harder to turn.

• Your tires are colder and therefore have greater rolling resistance.

In an article called, “Cold Weather Touring” by Dennis Coello

• Cable Housings: Seal up all cracks before you head out, for water will seep in, freeze up, and cause you headaches.

From the wisdom of the late Sheldon Brown

• “Shimmy or Speed Wobble” by Jobst Brandt: Shimmy that concerns riders the most occurs with hands firmly on the bars and it is rider generated by muscular effect whose natural response is the same as the shimmy frequency, about that of Human shivering. Descending in cold weather can be difficult for this reason. The rider's "death grip" only enhances the incidence of shimmy in this situation. Loosely holding the bars between thumb and forefinger is a way of avoiding shimmy when cold.

• One of my ways of dealing with cold weather is to cover my helmet's ventilation holes with tape. (Not a bike specific item, but worth considering. All that summer ventilation for cooling really does the job at 10 degrees.)

From an article titled, “Winter Cycling Tips”

• Steel gets more brittle at winter temperatures but I haven't seen any steel frames or components break from the cold.

• Aluminum and titanium don't get significantly more brittle at winter temperatures.

• Aluminum shrinks more than steel as it cools and on a bike with a steel fork and aluminum frame the headset will get loose when it's very cold.

• Plastics do get brittle and we see waterbottle cages, toeclips, pedals and the sheathing on cable housing break all winter. If the plastic cracks on indexed shifter housing, the housing will buckle and the shifting won't work.

• You can reinforce the shifter housing with heat-shrink tubing (available at electrical supply stores) to prevent this problem. The size that fits best is 3/16".

• Elastomer suspensions generally stop moving between 20 F and 0 F but they don't seem to be damaged by the cold.
• Oil-damped suspension systems are often damaged by operating at low temperatures You can change the oil in them to avoid this or install a rigid fork
• Only bring a cold bike indoors if you can keep it there until it's dried off completely.  (I would love to know more about this little tid-bit of information...do they explode? Anyone have a bike they'd dedicate to the cause of science?)
• If you bring a room temperature bike out into cold snow and ride it immediately, the snow thrown up by the tires may freeze onto brakes and derailleurs.

And while I did find loads of suggestions and tips for cleaning one's bike and ridding it of de-icer, salt and other winter road contaminants, none were more graphically described than what I saw on the Boston Biker website. The article is titled, "Winter Riding In Boston – Winter Bicycle Maintenance" but really it should be called, "Bike Abuse and Neglect: Taking Bikes Away from Bad Parents."  Take a look at this...it makes my neglect seem downright positive in comparison (not for the faint of heart).

I'd love to know if this actually turns.

Though that color might go great with a set of green Deep V's (AYHSMB's Style).

The site also discusses the risk of grit penetrating hubs, bottom brackets, headsets and other sensitive areas. So you really need to keep your bike clean and potentially follow some of the other suggestions for prepping your bike if you live in an area prone to crappy winters like they must have in Boston.

So my research did not yield anything too earth shattering. Sure the physical properties of metal and plastic can change a bit in cold weather, but there are in fact fewer moving parts and opportunities for failure on a bike than say our friend the automobile. So while it might seem mind boggling, if not outright insane, to want to ride when its 5 degrees out, don't think you're bike is helping to talk you out of it. It wants to go for a ride...it always wants to go for a ride. And if you don't believe me then maybe you should get a bike like this:

Mike Curiak's 2007 Moots Snow Bike

Now this bike doesn't give a shit how cold it is, and might straight up slap you and call you Nancy for suggesting otherwise.