Bath and shower with your bike

[Geonz]

Warm enough, today, to soften the ice on my trails enough for the studded tires to grab, so had a good hour of riding on the Norco Bigfoot. Also warm enough for the clear sections to turn into mud, so finished the day by giving the Norco a sponge bath.


It reminded me of what I sometimes did in my Chicago apartment back in my commuting days when I got home and needed to clean the bike. Real problem in the winter getting all the salt off the bike and no way to hose the bike off outside sooo ... don't laugh ... I squeezed the bike into the shower with me and we both cleaned off. Yup, a girl taking a shower with her bike. How's that for bike love?

Anyone else do something a little nutty like this with their bike?

I *should* -- a little harder 'cause it's a cargo bike though... wiht big ol' bags... and it's an Xtracycle so longer.

Last week I heard pinging in the rear spokes... stopped and could not find the source. Turned bike upside down and it was pretty grimy... one loose spoke but not broken... and my hair kept getting in the way (20 mph winds didn't help). Could not find the source... so pulled the wheel part of the way out and put it back in and shook it a bit... turned it back over... and rode slowly and felt the ping change so that it was only happening when the pedals were moving.

So I rode home and turned it over and took the wheel off and gave it a reasonably good cleaning -- found a chunk of denim to use as 'floss' on the chain ringand used a ton of Tri-Flow.

Much, much better now! Especially since I got a haircut

[north woods gal]

Yeah, I hate it when a bike starts making an unexpected noise, but I also know to stop and check things out. With all my trail riding, I pick up a lot of leaves and twigs and mud - all sorts of stuff. Interestingly, in all my years of riding in the snow and cold, though, I've never once had a derailleur or shifter freeze on me. That was never the problem on my winter commuting days. It was that darn salt they used on all those Chicago streets and that stuff would eat up everything on a bike. That's where the daily cleaning and sometimes a shower would come in.