How essential is a winter training bike?

timbooth

With the greatest of respect, if you have a 105/ultegra mainstream bike (like mine), you don't need a winter bike to keep that one pristine! For many people, aluminium with 105 IS a winter bike!

If you have a Record/Lightweight-equipped Pinarello, spending £500 on a hack to preserve your £5k bike makes sense.

There are loads of other reasons to have one though. If you want one, then you should get one. Many come from the old bike being relegated or from buying an old frame with m/g clearance and then gradually building it from spares, bike jumbles and hand-me-downs from club-mates.

leonlikestrees

maybe you should buy all my spare parts to make a winter hack - I think I can put together about 75% of a size medium Kaffenback - and I can even put some Ultegra and Dura-Ace on it (old 8spd stuff - see, it lasts!)

craigenty

I've read through the whole of this thread and only one person (Robbie the Roadie) has touched on the most important reason why you should have a winter bike with full mudguards.
If you are club / group riding , chainganging in winter, using your mudguard free best bike is the "pinacle of rudeness".
And by the way, Raceblades are a complete waste of money unless you fit a mudflap at least 8 inches long to it.

Lucky Luke

craigenty wrote:

I've read through the whole of this thread and only one person (Robbie the Roadie) has touched on the most important reason why you should have a winter bike with full mudguards.
If you are club / group riding , chainganging in winter, using your mudguard free best bike is the "pinacle of rudeness".
And by the way, Raceblades are a complete waste of money unless you fit a mudflap at least 8 inches long to it.

Agreed . By no means essential if you're riding solo , but riding in company in the winter without 'guards won't win you many friends as I'm sure your clubmates won't appreciate being sprayed with everything that comes off your back wheel .

Pagem

craigenty wrote:

I've read through the whole of this thread and only one person (Robbie the Roadie) has touched on the most important reason why you should have a winter bike with full mudguards.
If you are club / group riding , chainganging in winter, using your mudguard free best bike is the "pinacle of rudeness".
And by the way, Raceblades are a complete waste of money unless you fit a mudflap at least 8 inches long to it.

i disagree. race blades are fine if you fit them correctly. so what if you need to extend them a little? many of the boys who use standard guardss still extend theirs. the point about pack riding etiquette in the wet is correct but to suggest that you need a winter bike just so you can use full guards is nonsense. race blades are fine.

leonlikestrees

reminds me. Again in canada, I turned up the next week with mudguards, but no mudflaps. I still had to ride at the back!

Leon

Eat My Dust

Hmmm, I've been out on a winter club run, it was pouring down and out of around 20 people there was only around 3 or 4 people with guards on (me included) not very nice at all!!! I've found raceblades to be perfectly adequate, although I couldn't fit the front one due to the thickness of the carbon forks!!

Pagem

Eat My Dust wrote:

...although I couldn't fit the front one due to the thickness of the carbon forks!!

did you try to fit them using the cable ties or the rubber things? the cable ties tend to work better for bladed forks and rear stays.

robbie the roadie

How do you extend the raceblades to get better protection :?:

Pagem

robbie the roadie wrote:

How do you extend the raceblades to get better protection :?:

1) cut a small piece of plastic from a milk bottle or soemhitng and just tape it on with duck tape

or

2) buy a mud flap from your lbs and clip/screw/tape on.

robbie the roadie

oh right. Not advanced engineering then

Garybee

robbie the roadie wrote:

oh right

I just wanted to cause the forum to do that little bit of alliteration again

Yellow Cliff

Many club runs don't seem to see mudguards as a necessity in Winter now, which I think is really antisocial. I wouldn't want to ride in a bunch in the wet during Winter getting a face full of road crud.

The downside to winter bikes is that your summer bike can remain too good for too long, so you have no excuse to upgrade it. My "best" bike is ancient now, but it just doesn't get that much use because I use the training bike nearly all the time. 753 with 8 speed Campag anyone?

APIII

TimBooth wrote:

With the greatest of respect, if you have a 105/ultegra mainstream bike (like mine), you don't need a winter bike to keep that one pristine! For many people, aluminium with 105 IS a winter bike!

If you have a Record/Lightweight-equipped Pinarello, spending £500 on a hack to preserve your £5k bike makes sense..

I have a record equiped Pinarello (my 1 and only bike) that has been ridden year round for the last 5 years. I have only had to replace chains and cassettes and am soon to replace the cables. I am with some of the previous posters, in that good components tend to last longer, so long as you look after them. There's no way to avoid a wet a**e though

DavidBelcher

craigenty wrote:

I've read through the whole of this thread and only one person (Robbie the Roadie) has touched on the most important reason why you should have a winter bike with full mudguards.
If you are club / group riding , chainganging in winter, using your mudguard free best bike is the "pinacle of rudeness".
And by the way, Raceblades are a complete waste of money unless you fit a mudflap at least 8 inches long to it.

When I first started doing club runs, no-one really minded about my bike being guard-less, though I did always tend to stay at the back if it was wet for the consideration of others (thus avoiding a load of what might appear to be Paris-Roubaix competitors turning up for the cafe stop!). If riding solo, I don't mind being without mudguards and getting a soaking, as long as I keep moving most of the time - brief stops I can cope with, but it's once you're stood around off the bike for a good while (e.g. fiddling about with a puncture) that the damp and the cold really seem to kick in.

David

Nigel Bennett

I've nearly always had a winter bike. Summer bike is for nice, dry days and the winter bike's for commuting and club runs when it's wet. (like every day this July...)

I can get through about 3 rims in the winter, plus a couple of chains, despite having a bespoke smeg-deflector all round the front chainwheels and over the top of the chain/rear sprockets. Without that it'd be four chains and a cassette or two per winter!

I hate getting a wet bum and upsetting fellow riders, so mudguards and huge flaps are the order of the day. It's great getting on the summer bike after riding the winter bike for a while, though!

robbie the roadie

Only 5 of us braved the club run yesterday due to the persistnat drizzle/rain. Only one chap had full mudguards on and the rest of us just made do with wet bums :?

However as the 'full' mudguard was only half way down his rear wheel. It might have been keeping his bum dry but for the rest of us it wasn't exactly doing a great job of keeping us splatter free so perhaps this courtesy arguement is a bit wrong :?: :roll:

Titanium

No mudguard is going to keep you dry when its raining and if you want two bikes make the position on both as similar as possible.

passout

Surely one of the key points must be 'how good is your summer bike'? If you've got a cheap summer bike, there's no point having a winter bike and you probably can't afford it anyway?

leonlikestrees

Titanium wrote:

if you want two bikes make the position on both as similar as possible.

I don't necesserily agree - It depends on the usage of the winter bike. If I was going to train on it in the summer, then I'd want it to be very close to my race bike, but for actual winter use, when I'm not constantly switching bikes, I prefer a more relaxed position - a bit shorter, and a bit more upright.

pedalrog

Just swop the wheels and add some mudguards, that way you keep your position and ride the bike you are used to. You need to pay attention to keeping it clean though, keep all of that nasty salt out of it. Then inn March, strip it down and give it an overhaul ready for the better weather.

craigenty

pedalrog wrote:

Just swop the wheels and add some mudguards, that way you keep your position and ride the bike you are used to. You need to pay attention to keeping it clean though, keep all of that nasty salt out of it. Then inn March, strip it down and give it an overhaul ready for the better weather.

Proper mudguards don't fit on race bikes, that's the point of this thread :?

jumbolugs

I think you only need a "winter bike" if you commute through the winter, because you just don't have the time to clean your bike after every commute. If on the other hand you just go out on weekly club-runs in the winter then using your good bike is probably fine - provided you clean it after wet rides and in particular remember to wipe the chain dry then re-lube it.

I personally have never used race blades but people in my club do and they seem to do just as good a job of protecting the following rider as normal guards. (Probably not very good at keeping your own bike clean though.) The day I decided that I like full mudguards was the day when I rode without any guards along a wet lane that was covered in liquid cow-crap. Cleaning the green stuff off the underside of my saddle, tool-pouch, etc not to mention my jacket and shorts was not a joy.

I also think geography has a lot to do with this issue - I live in the West of Scotland where it rains a lot. If you're from the South of England then yes maybe you might want to do without them.

What I often wonder is - what's the actual benefit of designing a bike with close clearances so that you can't fit mudguards? You hear people say it makes the bike more responsive and the handling quicker due to the shorter wheelbase, but are you really likely to notice these differences unless you're a pro/elite rider? Correct me if I'm wrong but I think it used to be normal for race bikes to be designed with significant mudguard clearance - what we now call "long reach" brake calipers (47-57mm) were once the standard were they not? When and why did "short-reach" (39-49mm) become the standard? Is it just to do with fashion?...bah humbug...

richardjallen

What if a person were to turn up to a club run on a flat bar as their winter bike? Would they be frowned upon or would they just get dropped as they cant go fast enough?

jumbolugs

I have turned up for winter club runs on a flat-bar hybrid, keeping up not a problem as winter runs are generally slower anyway. Drop bars only make a difference if racing or time-trialling.

Monty Dog

When I started riding in Glasgow you were simply turned-away for turning up for a winter club run without guards - it was considered plain antisocial. The relative cost of bikes has declined too, so whereas 20-30 years ago you could only afford/justify one bike for all duties, it's now quite feasible to have a number of bikes for different types of riding - for me, that's part of the pleasure of cycling.

bagpusscp

My winter bike cost £50 . Local paper private sales .531 Raleigh . 105 group set . Renewing cassette and chain after 2winters on the road.

stevec205gti

I have two bikes - one Campag equipped road bike I'm quite proud of, and a converted old mountain bike with dropped handlebars, metallic green detailing and currently yellow wheels with red tyres. This one i'm not so proud of. I am happy to take the road bike out in the rain and grime, but only when I know i can clean it off afterwards. I ride to work every day, at least 25miles a day, and it's nice to have a bike I don't have to care about too much. My biggest concern is coming off on ice during the winter months - i'd be mortified if I had to replace my Centaur levers and rear mech, whereas it's far less of a concern on "Dessert Storm"

As for expense, the crap-mobile has cost me about £120 in total. The bike itself was £40 from ebay, I had to buy a new saddle and seatpost and also full mudguards, and everything else has been sourced from old bikes and bits lying around in the loft, so it's now using mainly old Tiagra components.

alecstilleyedye

richardjallen wrote:

What if a person were to turn up to a club run on a flat bar as their winter bike? Would they be frowned upon or would they just get dropped as they cant go fast enough?

not in my club. one guy always rides with flat bars, and, no, does not get shelled out the back every week.

Audiolathe

I thought Winter bikes were the bikes you got stuck with when you bought a new one and felt obliged to ride when the weather was too foul for your pride and joy??

Perhaps I'm wrong. To me it comes down to keeping things clean. I have a fixie as my designated winter/training/commuter/ride-this-if-i'm-bored-with-the-other-one bike and why it's good is that because it's a fixie it's a doddle to keep clean - just hose it down if things get really mucky. My Bianchi with fancy wheels I keep for sunnier days, or cloudy but dry days simply because of the cleaning - it just takes longer to clean a 10speed cassette etc.. so no REAL reason to have a winter-bike, just get on the program and look after your steed well and you'll be fine.