Have a 3T Ergonova alloy bar on my road bike. Probably had it for 3-4 years. 95% of the time the bike is on the trainer. Use it 2-3 times a week. About once every 7-8 months I’d feel these hard spots in certain areas under the bar tape. Pulled the tape off and found these large salt deposits, under the tape, from my sweat. Would clean the salt out and re-wrap the bar.
Had the hard spots again and removed the tape. In two spots, front and rear of the bar, the sweat has corroded through the bar and there is a bunch of corrosion around the areas.
The white stuff is the hardened salt under the bar.
The white stuff is the hardened salt under the bar.
And aluminum oxide.
Salt corrosion is often much more significant with indoor training than outdoor riding, because the lack of natural wind can allow the salty sweat to trickle down off the rider more.
Any alloy bar will do this, so when ever I wrap an alloy bar, the entire bar gets wrapped in insulating tape before fitting cables and bar tape.
Wet weather riding with a porous tape is worse than trainer riding.
For some reason black anodised bars are far worse than plain alloy and this is strange because anodised nipples always last longer than plain nipples in wheels.
So my pic, if I loaded one, would be less dramatic. But I noticed while changing out saddles that one of my 2 seat bolts is corroded. Do you figure it’s easy to acquire a stainless steel replacement bolt? I’m wondering if the spec’d bolt is proprietary, as it has some kind of mushroom shaped head (2015 Slice). By any chance, do you have any advice?
My local Ace Hardware has a great selection of stainless steel nuts and bolts of all kinds of shapes and sizes. I replaced a lot of the bolts in my cockpit with stainless after my first corrosion experience. If it is not too weird, you might be able to find a stainless replacement at an excellent hardware store.
I corroded the seat post fastener and threaded rod on my old proprietary aero seat post. A new one would have cost $250 or so and taken weeks to be produced / shipped.
Together with my LBS we dremelled out the corroded pieces and then I dropped in some stainless hardware. It wasn’t pretty like the OEM hardware, but it worked just fine and I never had to worry about it again.
Cool, thanks. I’ll make that part of my rebuild plan. I was also wondering if there might be a better greasing option than chain lube. Something that would stay on better. Vaseline?
Come to think of it, I had the seat post fastener bolts on my Cervelo P2c replaced. Bought the bike 2nd hand (believe it was an '08 model), rode it for 5 years (2010-5). I may be seeing a pattern… I do sweat like a mofo. Have taken to covering the fork bolt hole of the Slice with electrical tape and have a towel rolled up and sitting over the stem of it and my roadie while on the trainer.
… I was also wondering if there might be a better greasing option than chain lube. Something that would stay on better. Vaseline?
If you’re looking for “a better greasing option than chain lube”, I’d strongly recommend…grease!
Chain lube is not grease. there’s several types of chain lube, some oil based, some solvent and wax or PTFE based, maybe others. None of the typical ones are grease, and I wouldn’t think any of them is suitable for this application.
There’s some stuff that electricians use called Noalox to prevent oxidation of aluminum contacts… That should work to prevent it I think.
… I was also wondering if there might be a better greasing option than chain lube. Something that would stay on better. Vaseline?
If you’re looking for “a better greasing option than chain lube”, I’d strongly recommend…grease!
Chain lube is not grease. there’s several types of chain lube, some oil based, some solvent and wax or PTFE based, maybe others. None of the typical ones are grease, and I wouldn’t think any of them is suitable for this application.
… I was also wondering if there might be a better greasing option than chain lube. Something that would stay on better. Vaseline?
If you’re looking for “a better greasing option than chain lube”, I’d strongly recommend…grease!
Chain lube is not grease. there’s several types of chain lube, some oil based, some solvent and wax or PTFE based, maybe others. None of the typical ones are grease, and I wouldn’t think any of them is suitable for this application.
Thanks. I’d been using what I have, and I don’t currently have grease (or vaseline, come to think of it). But I suppose I should get some (grease).
If you wrench your bikes at all, bike grease is super useful a $20 tub lasts like forever and is good for bolts and ither fasteners for sweat and seizing.
Not sure it would be s good idea under bar tape though, you’ll probably lose the tavky grip the tape needs to not slide around.
I suspect wrapping the bar tighter would work best so no sweat can pool.
I recently discovered a similar issue with lots of corrosion inside the stem on my TT bike to the point it was obviously a hazard as lots of material was gone. Since my entire front end was 10 years old already I decided to swap it out for a TriRig Alpha X. But, I was definitely chocked when I saw how much damage corrosion had done.
