Busted by rust

The not-so-great outdoors is the most goshawfully stupid place to store a bike

Obviously rusted, but not necessarily worthless, this bike chain will join others like it in a bucket of oil at Ron King’s Recycle Bikes for Kids workshop. It — or parts of it — might loosen enough to be useful. Or not.
Obviously rusted, but not necessarily worthless, this bike chain will join others like it in a bucket of oil at Ron King’s Recycle Bikes for Kids workshop. It — or parts of it — might loosen enough to be useful. Or not.

— What is rust? Why is rust?

How much rust is too much rust?

As balmy, Bradford-pearfrothed mornings make riding a bicycle an after-work idyll, you remember the good ol’ metal beast you chained up regretfully in the backyard in November. So you hop like a bunny out to the shed to unhitch that fine spinner to take it out for a — whoa.

Nothing’s spinning. Your bright bicycle has been replaced by creaking, brown-encrusted junk. Trash. Dang.

Rust — it’s one of the less lovely froths of spring.

Webster’s New World College Dictionary terms rust a “coating” formed on iron or steel. Rust is usually reddish brown or reddish yellow, consisting mainly of ferric oxide or ferric hydroxide, so says the book. These grainy compounds form when molecules of the metal combine with oxygen and sometimes also hydrogen, which happens quickly in rain, dew and insidious humidity.

But no worries. Just wheel li’l Jenny out into the sun and let her dry off, and then all will be well, right?

Alas, ferric oxide is a stable compound, which means it doesn’t easily recombine with other atoms that might also be floating nearby, which means rust isn’t going to vanish as your bike dries in the sun. You could set the thing on fire, and it would still be rusty.

And the dictionary’s a little wrong about rust, isn’t it? Rust isn’t so much a “coating.” A coat would cover over the underlying metal and block predatory miasmas, as wax does over wood. In contrast, rust is progressive.

It’s more like a shawl crocheted in metal-mildew, permeable to air and water, crafted by some crawlspace-lurking old-lady sprite that hates you, hates spring. Deeper her needle digs, and deeper, picking up fresh atoms of metal until your bike frame resembles some fuzzy ancient mixed metaphor hauled off the bottom of the sea.

Rust also attacks steel alloys, like the high-tech-sounding chrome-molybdenum, aka chromoly.

Many, many backyard rustbuckets are painted steel of one sort or another (if it sticks to a magnet, it’s some blend of steel), but many others are not. Even in stores that sell cheaply made bicycles, these days, shiny aluminum abounds. If anodized, it won’t corrode. But if it’s merely factory polished and painted with clear coat, and that clear coat chips, aluminum will develop mangy-looking chalky white “rust.” It’s not progressive like the reddish brown stuff that grows on steel.

Ah, but there’s a rub: Even an anodized aluminum frame will likely have steel parts attached, because thin enough aluminum’s not strong enough to be practical in bolts and bike chains.

At the Community Bicyclist shop in Little Rock, Sam Williamson has been asked to revive rustlocked machines. His nominee for “the most goshawfully stupid lackof-maintenance type of damage” is storing any type of bicycle outside, exposed to the elements.

“Rusted chains, rusted sprockets, rusted cables and corrosion inside bearing assemblies all result from this,” he says. “We often see bikes that are so far gone with rust and corrosion that it simply doesn’t make financial sense to repair them.”

In Jonesboro, Gearhead Outfitters mechanic Jason Broadaway agrees: “I would say that keeping your bike outside in the elements all winter is about the worst thing you can do. You can pretty much total a bike in one season by leaving it outside.”

Even in Fayetteville, a university town where so many are striving to become more smart, “we definitely see that,” says Highroller Cyclery’s Branton Moore. Even educated people’s bicycles become rust-arthritic in drafty carports.

The dictionary adds a few “and also” meanings for the word rust, allowing it to be applied to any sort of reddish brown stain or corrosion; and then meaning No. 4 brings forth this disturbing judgment: “any habit, influence, growth, etc. injurious to usefulness, to the mind or character, etc.”

Meaning 5 implies more stern disapproval: “disuse of mental or moral powers; inactivity; idleness.”

You scum. You chained a shiny bicycle in the yard, left it there unused to rust.

VERNAL PARADOX

Pleasantly, discussion of this not really moral decay includes a paradox. Everybody loves a paradox. It’s almost as much fun as an equinox.

Although rust could just as easily envelope some $1,000 or $2,000 chromoly frame, backyard corrosion more often besets low-end bikes. Owners don’t lavish upon them the same level of delight or paranoia that escorts a $2,000 ride inside, out of the weather.

And thus the paradox: The pricier bicycle most likely would be made of material less likely to succumb to rust, such as well-prepped aluminum, noncorroding titanium or carbon fiber. A $3,000 bike might stand up (for a while) to the injurious attack of crotchety sprites lurking under your shed.

But when was the last time you saw a $3,000 bike left to fend for itself out in the yard?

HOW FAR GONE?

Rust is not always the end.

Chrome and steel can be scraped back into a state of service, if not shine, using light oil, steel wool and elbow grease, as Alex Ramon of Vancouver, British Columbia, demonstrates on video clips at bicycletutor.com. Clean away the rust and then protect the bike from moisture.

But all that work is a lot of work, and it wants arcane tools, so it seems to make sense to take the bike to a shop. How expensive could elbow grease become?

“You really can’t tell until you try the fix,” Moore says. “It also depends on the part, too. Some parts are pretty easily replaceable.”

Brake and gear cables are essential for working brakes and gears, and you should replace the rust-flecked tubes they run through, too. Each costs about $3 per foot, he says, but “you’re going to end up paying more on the labor, because of having to take it all off and put it all back together and readjust everything.

“If a person’s so inclined they can probably do those minor things themselves,” he notes.

Likewise, rusty chains might be salvaged at home.

A cheap chain can still be had for about $10, but, as Broadaway notes, what if you paid $30 for your original? “While not ideal, a little bit of surface rust on the chain is OK as long as the links still move without friction,” he says.

At Ron King’s Recycle Bikes for Kids in downtown Little Rock (see story on 1E), chains so stiff you could use one to prop open a window are dropped into a bucket of oil, soaked indefinitely and then worked with wire brushes and wiggling fingers until they move again. Sometimes, he says, the effort’s just too much trouble.

But “you can always bust it up and use the good links. In two years we haven’t thrown anything away yet.”

And rust on a rim isn’t necessarily the demise of the wheel.

“Those little pits you see in a rim are generally going to hurt your braking if you have rim brakes, but the rim itself is pretty strong material,” Moore says. “It’s probably not going to give you a big problem unless there’s a physical hole.

“The thing that is more an issue for us in the bike shop is the spokes. The spokes are what give the wheel its actual strength.”

Rust on sockets where spokes attach is bad, very bad.

“You can do this test where you put your hand on there and squeeze them a little bit, and if they make a creaky noise or if they ping really loudly and a bunch of rust dust comes off of it, then that’s probably a good indication that you should buy a new wheel,” Moore says.

Highroller has low-end wheels for about $30, but that doesn’t count tires, tubes, labor. And unless you have the right tool, you can’t get the gear cassettes off to transfer them.

Cranksets, which attach pedals to your bike and inhabit its bottom bracket, are another money sinkhole, and removing them takes tools that might cost as much as your bike did.

Many bikes have steel cartridge bearings that cannot be serviced, only replaced. And that’s not free, especially if the whole mess is fused by corrosion. For instance, the itemized labor menu that Little Rock shop Chainwheel has posted online says this: “Remove stuck bottom bracket, $60.”

On the other hand, Moore says, doing the labor yourself to rehabilitate a bike you’ve damaged through neglect and outdoor storage is more than a proper penance. It’s a chance to make new friends.

“If there is a person that is so inclined to do this,” he suggests getting acquainted with the Bike City ReCyclery, 546 W. Center St., Studio C, in Fayetteville. “They’re run on a volunteer basis, so you never know what kind of help you’re going to get there, but it does allow a person the option to bring their bike in and work on it with tools for a small amount of money.”

(A similar bike-reviving co-op in Little Rock disbanded when the Arkansas Sustainability Network changed quarters last year.)

At the very least, the work required to restore a rusty bicycle to (probably creaky) service will teach you not to leave it outside ever, ever again.

ActiveStyle, Pages 25 on 03/22/2010

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