Training indoors is often a way to avoid the wintery weather, where instead of being blasted by winter wind and rain, we can stay inside where it’s warm and dry. But there is a consequence to this: we remove wind chill, we tend to do higher intensity efforts, and we generate a good amount of heat.
This leads to increased sweat rates and humidity levels in a room if airflow is not properly maintained. Sweat is also a corrosive liquid, especially good at eating away at metal over time, the same metal that makes up bolts and components on road bikes. So what can we do to best protect our bikes from this sweat on the trainer?
Fans and dehumidifiers
A way to reduce the amount of sweat making its way onto your components when you’re flat out during an effort is to improve the rate at which it evaporates or dissipates. Using a fan means that the sweat can evaporate faster from your skin before it has the chance to drip down onto your bike, and it will also just keep you more comfortable.
A dehumidifier can also reduce the build-up of humidity wherever you are doing your indoor sessions, reducing your sweat rate. Both of these try to reduce the impact of the initial cause of indoor cycling bike damage.
Towels, sweat bands and sweat bibs
Another way to reduce corrosive sweat from reaching components is by putting barriers in place. The most common area on a bike to encounter sweat damage is the handlebars. Firstly, many bikes still use a two-piece bar and a stem, often made of aluminium with alloy bolts keeping them in place. We rest our hands on the handlebars, and our heads sit not too far away from them. As we sweat, this can drip down our forearms onto the bars, as well as falling from our faces onto these component areas.
Fortunately, there are a few things we can do to reduce this. Wearing sweat bands on your wrists or a cycling cap can be a useful way to catch the sweat before it drips down to the bars themselves. You just need to be aware that on long sessions with higher intensity, these can get saturated, as well as potentially warm up your wrists.
Towels, of course, are another option, and almost everyone riding indoors will use one, as you can place these over the bars to provide extra protection, and also use them to wipe sweat down from your face to prevent it from dripping down onto metal components.
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