[northwind]

In my experience washing a bike then failing to protect it afterwards in winter is worse than just leaving it dirty. What you're doing there is providing a nice clean surface for tomorrow's road filth to get plastered on, and also ensuring that the bike gets thoroughly wet constantly.

I totally stand by ACF50 on all the metal bits (bar the exhaust and brakes of course), some sort of hard wax for all the painted bits (I use a really cheap one from Halfords, no gloss at all but it keeps the cack off the paint. I wash mine maybe once a month through winter, and it's in better condition than almost any 5-year-old SV I've ever seen despite getting ridden daily through winter.

There's a lot you can do for preventative maintenance- you need to stay on top pof the brakes or they'll gum up something rotten. Chewy's stainless bolt kit is excellent too. When I has the standard front end on I powdercoated the fork lowers to prevent them bubbling up as they tend to.