Great ride this morning , absolutely beautiful including being eyed up by 5 red deer stags as we crossed Chatsworth. However both of us had real shifting problems presumably due to ice in cables, mechs etc.
The weirdest was my freewheel which behaved as if half the pawls were frozen.Starting on a hill you would spin the pedal, bring the other foot up to clip in and then grind to a halt because the crank had made a revolution without moving the wheel yet give it another spin and it engaged and off you went. I have heard of freewheels freezing completely and giving no drive but didn’t think pawls could freeze selectively. Anybody had similar problems?

Piss on it (the freehub that is) 🙂

I could see pawls freezing selectively, bit of moisture settled at the bottom of the internals and frozen or something. Especially something like a pro 2 where the sealing isn’t the best

Yup. Universal defrosting fluid (yellow) will see you right!

i’ve had that before – didn’t piss in it, but if i did i would want to be turning it pretty quickly or you’re just going to end up more frozen..

It’ll either be the grease increasing in visosity and becoming waxy or water freezing. Pissing on things does work and the urea and salts stops it freezing again too quickly.

We started carrying a small can of deicer on our club rides when it is below zero as it became a real problem.

Never, ever do a long, full, satisfying piss on a winter ride.
You don’t want to be empty when you need some.

I had similar issues I believe, yesterday…

Rear mech and/or shifter refusing to accept I wanted to change gear…

Had to press both shifter levers a couple of times before they clicked back into life.

Clean stuff out- fresh grease, lube cables, etc. If there’s no water in the parts then they’re not likely to freeze. Obviously harder to achieve with some than with others though!

Not long back from Cannock, gears shifting fine on the way up there but refusing to change down once in the higher part of the trail – I assume that’s what happened to me then. It was bloody cold.

My dropper post cable froze this morning – the worst of both worlds, the seat was up and in the way when standing up but when sitting down my knees were around my ears. I think a cable oiler may be required.