“RE: RE: Ride #36: Forty in the Rain”

On 7/16/04, Chris said:

>It does take time and effort.  A full cleaning is about 2 hours for
>me.  But the result is a bike that works as well today as it did
>when I built it in 1997.  

Chris,

Oh man oh man oh man! I ride in the rain pretty frequently, and I've never done anything like this to clean it up afterwards.

You've given me a serious guilt complex.

Honestly, I find it very difficult to fit riding into my daily schedule as it is... everything seems to get in the way. Since it's just for exercise (rather than for racing or whatever), I can't make it my highest priority. There's just no way I could possibly put this kind of time into cleaning the bike every time I ride in the rain.

Am I doing serious damage to the bike as a result? Would I be better off in the long run to just not ride in the rain, if I can't afford a couple hours of maintenance afterwards?

Seth