Winter maintenance that actually matters

People assume winter damage is about water. It is not, water on its own does very little. What does the damage is the grit and salt that comes up off the road with it, gets into the chain and the bearings, and grinds away like a paste.

Once you think of it as grit rather than rain, the right jobs become obvious and most of the elaborate advice falls away.

Mudguards do more than everything else combined

Full length mudguards with a proper mudflap are the single most effective thing you can put on a winter bike. They stop the front wheel firing a continuous jet of gritty water into your chain, bottom bracket and feet.

Length is the whole point. A short guard that stops halfway down the wheel keeps your back dry and does nothing for the drivetrain. The flap that comes near the ground is the part doing the work. We fitted exactly this setup on the bare frame commuter and it is the reason that bike needs so little.

Rinse the drivetrain weekly, properly dry it

Once a week through winter, warm soapy water and a brush on the chain, cassette and chainrings. You are not trying to make it look new, you are trying to get the abrasive off.

Then dry the chain, and then lubricate it. A wet chain that has been rinsed and left is worse than one you never touched, because you have washed the old lubricant out and left bare metal in the damp.

Use wet lubricant and use less of it

Switch to a wet weather lubricant in October. It is thicker, it stays on in the rain, and it does attract more grit, which is exactly why the weekly clean matters.

Apply one drop per roller, turn the pedals backwards a few times, wait a minute, then wipe the outside of the chain firmly with a rag. The lubricant that matters is inside the rollers. Everything on the outside is just collecting grit. A chain should look faintly damp, not black and wet.

Do this and check wear regularly, because winter can take a chain from new to finished in one season. Checking chain wear takes a minute and saves a cassette.

Brake pads wear several times faster

Grit on a rim or rotor turns the pad into sandpaper. Rim brake pads that would last a year of dry riding can be gone in two months of winter, and once through, the metal backing destroys the rim.

Look at the pads monthly. On rim brakes you want to see the grooves still there. Also pick the grit out of the pad surface with a pin, because embedded fragments are what actually score the rim.

The bolts that seize

Take your seatpost out once before winter, wipe it, and put a smear of grease on it, or the right paste if either part is carbon. A seatpost that has been left alone for three winters in a steel frame can be genuinely impossible to remove, and that is a frame written off for the sake of a job that takes five minutes.

The same goes for pedal threads and anything stainless going into aluminium.

Tyres and pressure

Drop the pressure slightly for grip on cold wet roads, but not so far that you start pinch flatting. Check weekly, because pressure falls faster in cold weather and a soft tyre punctures more easily. Fixing a puncture properly covers spotting a pinch flat.

Winter is also when a puncture resistant tyre pays for itself, because roadside repairs in February are genuinely unpleasant.

What we would not bother with

Deep cleaning the frame every ride. Degreasing the chain to bare metal weekly, which strips it faster than riding does. Expensive ceramic coatings. Storing the bike indoors if that means carrying it through a hallway you resent, because a bike you resent does not get ridden.

A March service is not optional

Whatever you do at home, winter puts grit into hubs, headsets and bottom brackets where you cannot reach. Bearings that are slightly gritty in March are destroyed by June.

A full service at the end of winter is the one we most often say is genuinely worth the money, because it opens the parts you cannot inspect.