Winter Salt and Storage

First hard freeze through late winter

Winter splits into two decisions and they need different maintenance. If you ride through it, the bike is going to spend months covered in a salt or brine solution that attacks every steel and aluminum surface it can reach, and the schedule tightens to something close to weekly. If you put the bike away, the job is to store it in a state that does not quietly destroy it over four months. Doing either one properly is easy. Doing neither, which is what usually happens, is what costs a drivetrain.

What clusters here

The jobs this season asks for

Winter Salt and Storage — First hard freeze through late winter
Job	Interval	Why it lands now
Deep Clean and Degrease	Seasonal	Road salt and brine keep working as long as they are on the bike, and they keep drawing moisture even in a dry garage. Whether you are riding through or putting the bike away, it goes into winter clean and it comes out of every salty week clean.
Clean and Lube the Chain	Monthly	Salt and brine strip a chain faster than plain rain does, and an unprotected chain can show surface rust within a day of a salted ride. This is wet lubricant season, applied after rides rather than on a monthly schedule.
Check Brake Pads	Monthly	Winter grit is the harshest thing pads ever see, and it is not unusual to go through a set in a single salted winter. Check them far more often than monthly if you are riding through.
Check Lights and Reflectors	Weekly	The shortest days of the year fall in this window, and cold weather shortens the runtime of rechargeable lights noticeably. A light that lasted a week of commutes in September may not last three days in January.
Check the Headset and Bearings	Seasonal	Salt water finds its way past seals and sits there. Bearings that go into winter dry and sealed stand a chance, and checking at the start and end of the season is how you find out which ones did not make it.
E-Bike Battery Care	Event-triggered	Cold is the defining e-bike issue of the season. Range drops in the cold, charging a cold pack is generally not permitted, and a battery left in an unheated garage all winter is being stored outside the range its manufacturer specifies.

What the weather is doing to the bike

Salt and brine do not stop working when the ride ends. They attract moisture from the air and keep corroding in a dry garage, which is why a rinse after a salted ride matters more than a deep clean once a month.
Cold reduces the range of an e-bike battery, and that reduction is not damage. Range generally comes back when the pack warms up. What does cause damage is charging a pack that is still cold, which is why manufacturers publish a permitted charging temperature range.
Rechargeable lights run shorter in the cold, and the drop can be dramatic on the coldest mornings. Charge more often than you think you need to, and keep a spare rear light that takes replaceable cells.
Tire pressure falls as temperature falls, so a tire set on a mild afternoon reads noticeably lower on a freezing morning. Check it in the cold rather than adjusting for it in your head.

Storing it through this season

Store the bike clean and dry, indoors if at all possible. A bike put away dirty spends the winter corroding, and a bike stored in an unheated shed spends it going through condensation cycles every time the temperature crosses the dew point.
Put a fresh coat of lubricant on the chain before the bike goes away, and wipe the outside off. A degreased and unlubricated chain will show rust in a day.
Inflate the tires to a reasonable pressure and, if you can, hang the bike or lift the wheels off the ground so the tires are not sitting under load in one spot for months.
Take the e-bike battery off the bike and bring it indoors. Do not store it in an unheated garage, a shed or a car, and do not leave it on the charger for the winter.
Store the pack at the charge level the manufacturer specifies, which is generally partial rather than full or empty, and within the storage temperature range they publish for that pack. Check it every month or two and bring it back to that level.
Let a cold pack warm to room temperature before it goes on a charger in spring. Follow the charging temperature range in the manual for your bike rather than a general figure, because it varies between systems.

Gear this season leans on

The rest of the year