Winter bicycle maintenance: Essential tips for every cyclist

Winter riding poses its own set of maintenance challenges - here's how to battle them

Liam Mercer

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Dec 30 2023

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Even if you have already set up your bike for winter, the wetter, grittier and muckier conditions will accelerate the wear and tear on your bike. To keep your bike running as best it can, while saving a bit of cash in the long run, it’s important to keep on top of your bike maintenance and here’s exactly how it’s done.

Clean your bike more regularly

The most obvious maintenance task is bike cleaning. It goes without saying but your bike will get dirtier and mud will cling to it. Dry mud in your bike’s linkage will speed up the wear process while making your bike feel awful.

As soon as you get back from your ride, no matter the dwindling motivation levels, bite the bullet and reach for the brushes. Give it a thorough clean and you'll save yourself money in the long run.

Use a ceramic or protective post-wash coating

At the moment, ceramic and protective post-wash coatings are becoming very popular. Using clever technologies that come from the automotive industry, ceramic coatings create a slippery and hydrophobic coating. This is perfect if you do struggle with post-ride bike clean motivation as it makes the task that much easier. Ceramic coatings can be pricy initially, but there’s enough in the bottle to coat more than one bike and they’re claimed to remain effective for years.

If a ceramic coating isn’t for you, products such as Muc-Off’s Silicone Shine and Kingud’s Bike Protect do a similar job. However, they require application after every wash. Either way, sorting your bike with a coating like this will make your life a bit easier.

Choose a wet chain lube

The three standard chain lubes are wet, all-weather, and dry. These apply to the conditions out on the trail but there’s a little more than meets the eye here.

A dry lube, as its name suggests, is a thinner solution that is excellent for dry weather because it’ll keep your chain running smoothly without attracting dirt and turning into an abrasive paste. This boosts the longevity of your bike’s chain. However, a dry lube can wash out very easily even after a stream crossing. So where winter is consistently wet, it’s important to switch to a wet lubricant as it’ll stay in place after riding through puddles.

The downside of a wet lube is that dirt sticks to it much easier, and that’ll turn into a black paste that’ll affect efficiency and reduce the lifespan of your drivetrain, which leads me perfectly to the next point.

Clean your drivetrain often

During the summer, riders can easily get away with skipping a drivetrain clean here and there. But in the winter, you’ll need to step up your game.

Riders should have changed to a wet chain lubricant, which, as mentioned before, holds dirt and wears down the whole drivetrain. Even a wet lube will eventually wash away if it's too wet leading to corrosion and sticky chain links. At the very least, get a chain cleaning tool or similar. Run the chain through some degreaser and lubricate it once dry.

But I’m not just talking about the chain here, as old wet lube will stick to your chainring teeth, and teeth on the cassette. Here, grab a trusty cassette brush and scrub away with a degreaser. Of course, mud and other debris can find their way in between the cogs on a cassette, so it's worth thoroughly clearing out all the muck.

Keep on top of your headset

As the conditions get damp, water finds its way into all of the small parts of your bike and the headset especially, increasing wear. Thankfully, your headset is easy to check over and it’s well worth cleaning and greasing every so often to make sure that grit and water stay well away.

It doesn’t take much either, just wipe away any old grease and apply a new film over the bearings. This will act as a barrier against water from ingressing into the bearing and increase its service life. Your headset will then remain smooth, even through gritty conditions.

But the headset is one thing that should be paid special attention and when any play develops, get those bearings replaced as soon as possible. This will prolong the life of your frame, and keep your bike handling exactly as it should.

Keep an eye on your brake pads and cables

Wet and muddy conditions boost the rate of wear of almost all of your bike’s components, which is why roadies often use a less expensive winter bike.

Because we prefer life in the dirt, we ride throughout the winter, often on the same bike. That's why it is important to keep tabs on the important perishables such as brake pads and gear cables (or brake cables if you’re of that persuasion). Again, water and mud that’s flung from the wheels will find their way between your brake rotor and pads, which wears both down faster. Moisture can also get into your cable housings, introducing corrosion.

While there’s nothing that can be done to slow down the wear, other than cleaning your bike regularly, the best you can do is check them more frequently and replace them when necessary. After all, we all want smooth shifting and the ability to stop, even in the winter.

Keep drainage ports clear

Most bikes have small drainage ports often around the bottom bracket that allow for any water that’s somehow made it into the frame, to drain. Throughout winter, there’s more water around and more puddles to cross which will find its way into the frame through disused cable ports on un-gusseted seat post clamps.

With tonnes of mud, these drainage ports can clog which stops water from draining. Using a needle or a small Allen key, clear the blockage to allow the water to drain.

Leave the bigger jobs for spring, unless urgent

Maintenance such as suspension servicing and pivot bearing replacement should happen on at least an annual basis or as the manufacturer states. But to get the best longevity between service intervals, it’s wise to get these done as the dryer months roll in. That’s simply because there’s less dirt and moisture present that can get into these expensive components and accelerate wear.

If these tasks are taken out at the start of the dryer months, your bike should run just fine throughout the summer and back through the winter. Doing this also provides an excellent reminder of when to get these jobs done again.

However, if there’s something seriously wrong with your bike, such as excess play in a wheel hub or the suspension isn’t working as it should – it's worth getting that fixed straight away.