Frame full of water

lemon63
lemon63 Posts: 253
edited April 2014 in Workshop
Got caught in a major downpour today and after getting home and drying off I gave the bike a wipe over. I flipped the bike upside down and was surprised at the amount of water that poured out of the seat tube.
The bike is a 4 yr old alu framed Giant SCR3 - my questions are;
1) shouldn't the water have drained out from somewhere when it was upright ?
2) what damage could it cause if it's not drained out ?
3) would you normally store a wet bike upside down ?

Comments

  • Monty Dog
    Monty Dog Posts: 20,614
    Water runs down between the seatpost and seattube. Some folks drill holes in the bottom of their BB shell for this reason. Water ingress can be bad for your BB bearings - particularly BB30 as they sit directly in the BB shell. I hang my bikes vertically - allows the water to drain-out
    Make mine an Italian, with Campagnolo on the side..
  • term1te
    term1te Posts: 1,462
    One solution is to make a boot from an old innertube. Cut about 4 cm and stretch it over the seatpost/frame junction. Looks pretty rubbish, unless the frame and seatpost are black, but stops water getting in. I used such a boot for a while on a particularly leaky frame, but later fitted mudguards, and he problem was fixed without the boot bodge.
  • darkhairedlord
    darkhairedlord Posts: 7,180
    my trek has holes in the chainstays so a quick wheelie when I ride into the shed usually does for me!
    OK, I can't wheelie, always fell off when i was a nipper so I just wheel it in on the back wheel in a safe and responsible manner.
  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Posts: 79,667
    Yeah, I saw a thing on bike radar about drilling some holes in the bottom of the frame to let it run out. Works on mine.
  • jordan_217
    jordan_217 Posts: 2,580
    Leave your bike in a bowl of rice overnight.
    “Training is like fighting with a gorilla. You don’t stop when you’re tired. You stop when the gorilla is tired.”
  • craker
    craker Posts: 1,739
    That was my wettest commute in memory last night... coming out of Bristol at 6pm it started raining so hard it was hurting my lips. A bit later on the sky lit up and a big rumble of thunder echoed nearby. I quite enjoyed it too :-)

    So... turn my bike upside down when I get home tonight (am on the bling bike today as I'm going to have a go at time trialling).