I’ve always been of the mindset of having a hardtail that I abuse to spare my full susser in winter. Perhaps this is partly an N+1 excuse, but I like having simple bike I can chuck in the shed and not worry too much about maintaining.

Now my back is knackered I’m toying with the idea of selling my hardtail and just riding full suss all year.

Interested in hearing people’s experiences of riding a full susser all year and what it costs them to maintain.

I suspect I am fooling myself and actually it saves me b*gger all as I have two bikes to fix instead of one 😆

no more than a hardtail.

winter for me wears out chains, BBs, brake pads, clothes.

not much more than riding it normally unless you can’t be arsed to clean it and ride thought hub deep mud and round salty roads all the time. Winter riding is about picking suitable route, head for the rocky stuff etc.

as above… no more than maintaining a hardtail

Agreed. I’ve just swapped the bearings on my turner 6 pack after 8 years. Not because they needed it but because I wanted to try the Push version. If that many Peak District winters can’t kill them, I don’t think anything will.

The only increased costs over a hardtail should be bearings and maybe a shock service and bushings.
On my trance the bearings last for a couple of years and cost about £20 to change and I’m probably on my 3rd set of top bushings in around 5 winters. I service the shock myself which costs barely anything.

SH suss frame of eBay to replace the HT?

Depends where you ride. After riding a full suss mainly in the Peaks through a winter, and the grinding paste-esque nature of the slop that you’re constantly axle-deep in meant new bearings and pivots throughout, and a shock service. These ended up costing the same as a half-decent, second hand hard tail frame.

So thats what the money went on subsequently

Whatever it costs it’s worth it. I used to have a blunt instrument hardtail for bad weather riding but all it did was encourage me to ride differently in poor conditions

Far better to plunge into winter on fs and ride through it. imo the small gains in maintenance on a ht are overwhelmed by the compromises in riding

Whatever it costs it’s worth it. I used to have a blunt instrument hardtail for bad weather riding but all it did was encourage me to ride differently properly in poor conditions

FTFY 😀

Thought that there was more damage with the bike on the rear mounted car rack in all the salt and road crap, than from trail use tbh.

Bearings are easy to replace, backs aren’t 😉

As I suspected it is probably a false economy. I may have to improve my bike cleaning skills in winter though. Hardtail gets the chain cleaned, a bit of lube and then is chucked in the shed.

How good are you lot at cleaning your full sussers?

I rode FS all last winter, a set of pivots but other than that seemed about usual, was more fun too 🙂

Then I remembered my rear shock died this summer, could be coincidence, could have been brought on/accelerated by a winter of filth – dunno.

Rigid singlespeed with cheap steel transmission (and square taper BB), is probably the best winterproofing you can do, may not be your thing tho.

Mine is 8 years old and other than the odd paint chip, looks like new.

hose pipe, and some lube. It’s not rocket science. In reality cleaning is a bit of a funny one, the problem occurs when the parts move generally, so anal cleaning the riding through slop might not be the best idea 🙂 As I said when winter comes avoid the slop ride the rocks.

Im actualy going the other way but to a frame that can run gears or ss selling up the fs for a hardtail
ss rigid in winter and gears and front sus for summer

Bearings are easy to replace, backs aren’t

Despite loving riding hardtails, this is what my body is telling me. Back surgery in a few months and then I have to give up jumping on hardtails for good.

How good are you lot at cleaning your full sussers?

Life’s too short for cleaning bikes. Who the hell wants to be sat in the back garden in the rain and the cold, after a night ride, with a bucket and a toothbrush, when you could be in the pub?

A hard tail and a can of chain lube is what you need to get through a winter

A hard tail and a can of chain lube is what you need to get through a winter

Works on the full sus too

My Trance is starting its seventh winter of muddy gloop. Original suspension pivot bearings failed after two. Replacements still fine now. On its 4th top shock bush.
One cassette and two chains a year. Set of jockey wheels every other. Rear shock air can been serviced just once. Fork lowers get done twice a year .
My hardtails are for going to the pub on. 😉

I live in Scotland, winter’s less hard on the bike because the mud freezes 😆

I probably spend £40-£50 on bearings for mine a year- generally one full set, and sometimes another set of horst link bearings as they’re a bit wee and exposed. Which considering the amount I ride the thing and the amount of other consumables it needs, is pretty small. Less than I spend on chains frinstance, or haribo

Hose it down and spray the chain and gear gubbins with GT85 then into the house for a G&T/glass of red/cup of tea 😀

I think it varies with design

Something like the old Specialized FSR where the shock is set in the rear wheel spray could cause problems

But my experience so far is that its not an issue. On my Trek the pivots and shock don’t seem to be in places that seem prone to spray or dirt accumulation

I do wonder if over cleaning does cause problems on some bike. I can’t see a bit of dirt sitting on the outsideface of a bearing being a big deal. Better than that regular sprays of degreaser

The bits of a bike that seemed to be vulnerable to poor conditions are the fork stanchions and drive train. The rear shock on most frames stays way cleaner than he forks

Did everyone else enjoy the thread on here a while back about buying a £1500 hard tail frame to save the cost of pivot replacement

Did everyone else enjoy the thread on here a while back about buying a £1500 hard tail frame to save the cost of pivot replacement

Was it a Ti Cove ? 🙂

I never get the “winter bike” thing. If you clean your full sus properly, or better don’t clean it so much, it’ll last just the same as if it was summer all year.

I think people just don’t like the hassle of cleaning what with all that extra complexity of a linkage or two and a shock 😉 . Though I’ll give you some bikes have such a crap design that they suck in mud into the rear suspension. But again, don’t clean it so much.

Still, could be worse. Could be your winter bike is a road bike. Because riding winter shitty condition pot-holed roads with salty spray behind traffic is great fun compared to the fear of getting a bike slightly muddy 😛

Drive train and brakes are the only things that actually benefit from cleaning. All your pivots, bearings and seals will actually suffer more from having water sprayed at them than having a layer of dried mud sticking to the outside of them.

That said my bike gets a hose if its really filthy as I don’t like muddy bikes in the garage shedding crap everywhere.

If you enjoy riding a hardtail more than a full suss,how about giving a suspension seat a try after the op?
There must be loads of people on STW who could give you advice on the best one.
The others will try to sell you theirs!

My solution to winter is a rigid bike with hub gears, I’m of the reduce maintenance to as close to zero as possible. Chain gets the occasional wipe over and more cheap gearbox oil poured over it.

I think there’s more diffrence between a hartail and rigid, than between FS and hardtail. In that the rigid has no shock/fork wear to worry about, whereas the hardtail still needs some fork care.

I’m with those who just try to ride harder surfaces, and I try and avoid/keep to a minimum axle deep mud-plugging and water splashes if possible. It wears the bike and the trails more that way. I don’t get much joy from slithering down a muddy bridleway slowly, knowing all lube is being left behind and the trail messed up for longer.

Winter, Riding a bike in the winter!?!

WTF!

I never get the “winter bike” thing. If you clean your full sus properly, or better don’t clean it so much, it’ll last just the same as if it was summer all year.

It’s very, very simple. If I told Mrs Daz that I was buying a new bike for no reason other than I want one, she’d tell me to sod off. If I tell her I need one to ride in the winter otherwise my extremely expensive super-bike will need £500 of maintenance in the spring she’s much more receptive. The need-new-bike-to-preserve-better-bikes food chain is full-susser -> hardtail -> singlespeed hardtail.

I never get the “winter bike” thing. If you clean your full sus properly, or better don’t clean it so much, it’ll last just the same as if it was summer all year.

The main clue is in the name… It’s a bike for riding in the winter, it could be a super complex bells ‘n’ whistles FS if you’d prefer but logically many of use try to keep things simple and low maintenance with a rigid SS…

I think people just don’t like the hassle of cleaning what with all that extra complexity of a linkage or two and a shock. 😉

So you do actually get it after all?
Well done you… 😉

i’ve just put the full-suspension bike away for the winter.

mostly this means that it’ll get a full strip-down, and rebuild, before spring – when i’ll start the same process on the hardtail.

i don’t necessarily do this to stop my expensive bike being ruined by winter, but mostly so that i’m forced to keep on top of maintenance – and i hope things will last longer as a result.

(certainly, it means my bikes work better, and i enjoy it)

and also, it means that i’m always enjoying the euphoria of the newly-converted, every spring/autumn i’m overjoyed to (re)discover just how much fun a hardtail*/FS bike is!

(*with cheap forks)

Life’s too short for cleaning bikes. Who the hell wants to be sat in the back garden in the rain and the cold, after a night ride, with a bucket and a toothbrush

I always rather took this view. This year, I have discovered:

This massive bottle of Muck-Off:

Poured into this pressure-sprayer:

Then washed offwith this hose-brush attachment:

Total time for a half-decent clean-up is done to about 5 minutes, although it does use quite a lot of Muck-Off.

😀

i use two bikes and ride everyday coaching etc.. i rarely wash them, just clean drive and lube. makes them last a bit more but new drive every spring and autumn

My 2005 Marin Full Sus has only ever had one full rennovation on the rear end, and it’s still going…admittedly it doesn’t get used so much now.

My 2013 Giant Anthem 29er started getting wobbly after only a year. I did the bearing that was obviously shot, only to find the rest weren’t that clever either, so I ended up doing the whole lot plus shock bushings.

The Marin is quite well sealed against the weather, the Giant isn’t.

I’m pretty sold on 29ers, so I’m currently putting together a Hardtail 29er project to ride through the winter with.

cookeaa – Member

I never get the “winter bike” thing. If you clean your full sus properly, or better don’t clean it so much, it’ll last just the same as if it was summer all year.

The main clue is in the name… It’s a bike for riding in the winter, it could be a super complex bells ‘n’ whistles FS if you’d prefer but logically many of use try to keep things simple and low maintenance with a rigid SS…

I think people just don’t like the hassle of cleaning what with all that extra complexity of a linkage or two and a shock.

So you do actually get it after all?
Well done you…[/quote]

Mountain bikes are made for riding in crud, and often where it’s mountainous it’s wet with it.

In terms of maintenance costs, it’s very little different to if it’s dry.

In terms of having to clean the bike, well MTFU and clean it, or don’t clean it, whatever. It’ll probably be just the same, just muddy looking.

My comment earlier was sarcastic and the point being it’s virtually no extra hassle to clean a full sus vs a hard tail. So no I still don’t get what the problem is with winter riding a full sus 😉

Now, a low maintenance bike such as a rigid SS, yeah fine. Makes no difference the weather, it’s just a low maintenance bike all year round.

Muc off is one of those things i suspect destroys pivots

but I have no evidence for this

it just seems a bit too good to be true otherwise

Try DuckSmart mud remover its way better than muc off and doesn’t strip the oils out your hands either and its frothy sprayer means you use less……makes cleaning quicker and easier…. That said my full suss has a little coating of Woburn Sands…sandy mud, the Cove Stiffee is shiny clean, the road bike, shiny clean, the SS, partially dismantled but clean and its replacement Boardman 29er winter general XC bike is covered in local mud from Monday and will stay like it until it rains on it when I’m out or stuff seizes up…chain lubed with MucOff C3.