I only have 1 road bike. The same I race, train, and occasionally commute with. When I ride indoors, I definitely sweat – mostly from my face area , and try to dry it off with a towel when it starts running down.
When I’m done with my ride, I know it’s important to clean off any sweat, but I don’t have any sweat spots on my bike. I’m not sure if the fan is drying it up and I can’t see it anymore, or if I’m just not dripping any sweat okto my frame.
Should I still wipe down my bike even if I don’t see anything? If so, what parts of the frame should I wipe down? I’ve heard many horror stories and don’t want to be a part of the “statistic” per se. But at the same time, I don’t see any sweat spots – wet or dry – and want to know if I should actually bother with it
Personally I find the headset and stem clamps to be the most vulnerable, since the sweat from my head drips straight onto them. I completely destroyed a headset when I first started indoor training, it basically got rotted by sweat. Better to keep the sweat out though, since once it’s into the headset or the stem clamps then just wiping down afterwards isn’t going to help much. So I just tape over the headset cap and stem bolts (both on the steerer tube and on the bars) with insulating tape, and drape a towel over the bars as well.
I would just spray the frame once every couple rides with the muc off bike cleaner. the headset i would wipe just make sure to keep lubricated, if your realy worried, take plastic wrap and cover your top tube and headset .
I live in Houston. It’s about as hot and humid here as anywhere in the world. With a Lasko fan, a Halo Bandit headband, and a wipe across the brow between sets, I almost never drip sweat. Almost zero.
I spend a lot of time on the trainer and agree that the headset and top tube is probably the most impacted part but i have also noticed that the placement of my fan also determines where sweat gets blown to. When I had my 2 fans pointing from the front i had a lot of sweat on the seat tube, chain stays, and even the area a couple feet behind me. I have changed up my fan placement to have one on the front right blowing on my chest and face and the other on my left rear blowing on my upper legs and back. I feel that the cooling is much better this way and at some point think i might go completely overboard and have 4 fans one for each corner as I definitely feel better when i feel cool.
I might also suggest heading to your local hardware store like home depot. They have long foam tubes used to wrap around pipes for a couple of bucks. i cut them to size and place them on my top tube and shape them for my handle bars to protect my bars and bar tape.
As an aside, Fizik makes a bar tape that can be easily rewrapped as it doesn’t have a backing tape, instead it has a sticky back like a window decal. This allows it to be unwrapped, everything can be washed and then rewrapped. It is the Terra line of tape.
you probably should just clean your bike after every training section if you are concerned with your sweat, where do you think it goes on a road ride? just wash your bike and use some rainex
