My commute was 25 miles each way, 1400 feet (426m) of ascent each way, with no transit option. Last winter, a surprise blizzard rolled in during the week. My ride home took me 2.5 hours, rather than my usual 1:40, but I managed to stay upright the whole ride despite riding on slicks. Fixies and foul weather, better together!
Psssh. That chain got nothing and liked it! :D Okay, in all honesty, I would clean and lube the chain when it started making noise. But I would run it down until the chainring and cog were nubbins. Then swap in some new cheap replacement bits every two years or so.
Ice, sand, and salt separately are magical kryptonite to bike bits. Together, they are an anti-bicycle Voltron. There’s a very popular trail where I live and the surface is mostly a super fine rock dust that absolutely chews up bicycles. It’s so uncannily destructive that it defies comprehension.
I learned the hard way this winter to store my bike indoors instead of in my barn so that the ice can melt between uses. I don’t think I’ll go through parts as quickly next year now that I’ve got a better game plan.
Last winter was so much easier because we didn’t have stretches of months at a time below freezing, and weeks at a time below saline freezing.
Salt, ice, and unsealed bottom bracket: creaking every 2-3 weeks!
Cartridge bottom brackets FTW. Shimano no longer makes the UN-54/UN-55, but that was my goto for a very long time. Costs about $16USD and lasts forever. One of my bikes had over 100000 miles/160000km on a single UN-54. That bike saw it all: flooding (immersion), salt, ice, rain, neglect, and “Star Wars Ep 1.” It was still smooth and solid when I sold that bike.