Weird one.
Riding through some logging areas and must have gone through a big ol pile of HD grease on a downhill. Had thick grease all over my BB shell, chainring, chain, bottles, and cassette/derailleur from the chain carrying it.
This stuff is super heavy duty and hard to get off. I’ve gotten it off of the bike and I’m fairly confident the cassette is clean. The chain makes me nervous, but it only has like 400 miles on it. Should I ditch it and get a new one or am I over reacting?
There’s an inaccessible gangway between my garage and my neighbor’s Art studio out building coach house thing. There’s grape ivy growing in there and consuming both buildings. It’s growing up under the eve or under the roofing material(?) and into the garage lol.
But the warmer it is, the worse the oxidation. 50% humidity at sub-freezing temps is far less water in the air than 50% humidity at 50 or 60 degrees. I just googled it and every 10 C/18 F increase in temp, the amount of oxidation doubles. So your 35 F degree garage is going to have half as much oxidation potential as Kyle’s 53 F degree garage. So in winter it would be worse. Especially if a bike is put away wet - it will dry really slowly. Do i think it will be fine? Probably, but freezing tepms would be better than the mild PNW temps.
Summer won’t be a big deal though because summer in the PNW is not very humid.
That said - someone mentioned that they had a cement wall in that contributed to worse oxidation. This made me wonder if something similar happened to me. I lived at one spot in CO and I put one bike in the cellar, which was a super old foundation of rocks and mortar holding it together. I had the bike down there less than 2 months and the chain rusted solid… I’ve had bikes practically outside in CO for thay long and gotten less rust. this was a road bike with a probably not recently lubed chain, but not dry. Had to replace the chain because one link would not fully free up.
My old house had stone and brick foundation walls that always seeped a little bit. Any bike leaned against those walls would be an unrideable mess of corrosion within a few weeks. I don’t miss that!
Bricks and stones are porous and absorb moisture, which can increase ambient humidity
Love that this is turning into ShartQs Science Edition
I wonder if there’s also a ph component like from lime in the mortar/cement
Commonly available chain degreasers should be able to dissolve this if it’s seriously in the rollers. You’ll know pretty quick if the chain is still contaminated and can swap to a new one before it hurts your cassette.
Our most humid time of year corresponds to the height of summer. I know we have Seattle beat on high temps! Not sure how to parse the winter/summer thing tbh. Once there’s ice on the trails, I stop riding except for townie and ebike. Ebike sits outside all winter surrounded by snow.
The concrete thing is real and someone with more science should explain. Something about the ph level of the concrete destroying nearby metal. I had a whole bike ruined and then some in my apartment building’s basement. Campy 11 speed groupset rusted. That silver/gold finish came off the chainrings, etc. It was wild.
not me storing all my bikes in the CBS over slab garage. at least it has a little AC unit, I should start running that on a timer.
I don’t think pH has much to do with it. Condensation will happily settle on metal and you’re storing a bike next to a huge sponge.
Chlorides like road salt or pool chems will accelerate the process too.
I think this is what happened to me. Absolute death of bike. Highly alkaline environment.
I enjoyed watching a sequence of this person’s videos some time ago. This one starting at 13:55 might be informative for rust in particular.
I could listen to his voice all day.
I had subscribed ages ago and was surprised when a video appeared after such a long hiatus
i dont know where else to put this but im reading on mtbr that charlie cunningham died yesterday?
little brother looking for a niece bike. light hardtail for a 12yo who has been following her brothers around long enough that she is a pretty good rider. he’s looking at the liv tempt but the spec looks kind of shit. anyone have any ideas on small grown up sized light as possible hardtail without me having to build it and send it across the country?
In another thread, it was discussed that Giant/Liv is the best price per spec over any other brand.
That’s probably your best option without finding a used bike locally.
In the spirit of tarck, I’m going to ask “why a hardtail”
weight
west coast? should be able to find a cheap demo bike somewhere
Parts spec should be less of a concern since kids are going to destroy shit. Alivio hurts less than XT to replace. Also Alivio is pretty good.
