Winter Riding = Dirty Riding

I am a pretty well year round rider, but there's one thing about riding in the winter that is a pain and that's the filth from the road. Here's my Scott after 40 miles of the roads between Solihull, Meriden and Bedworth:

I don't think I am overly precious about my bikes but I do tend to try to keep them clean. After this ride I cleaned the Scott properly and assumed that it would not be ridden again until Spring. However a few weekends later the roads were dry and the lure of the Scott was just too great. Its not as dirty this time but its certainly not clean like it was...

The worst thing is the wheel rims that tend to get machined away if the roads are too wet or mucky. I am still using the RS80s on the Scott and these really seem to get eaten by the muck. On the Giant I refit the original heavy Giant wheels in the winter for this reason alone - these wheels are in the £80 region to replace rather than the £350 region for the RS80s. But in the end the bikes are there to be ridden. So I do.