Not to joke too hard but how long do you ride usually? To me a solid post ride cleanup takes 10mins tops. Thousands of miles on my dirty moutain bike and stuff still works right. Sure I replace parts that wear but seems insignificant.
Yes I am very confused by that statement as well. After rides on muddy trails I just hose my bike down, pat the metal parts dry and apply grease to relevant parts.
Any city bike worth its salt will have a chain case and long inverted U-shaped fenders that will redirect dirty spray away from you.
You won’t get off completely clean but maybe 99% clean?
Nope, I'm talking about riding fairly high end gravel bikes on Southeast Michigan (US) dirt roads on which the surface has been treated with a chloride spray which acts as a binder and water repellent for the road surface. The treatment keeps light rain from saturating the road surface, which keeps the road nice for longer.
If it's been wet enough for the surface to get soft and sloppy, once this flings up on a bike it dries hard. This material requires a solid soaking on the bike to get it to soften before it can be cleaned off, and it also is highly corrosive to metal due to the salt content. (Unless it's had time to soak in water runs off of it.) So it takes a fair bit of time and effort, and it's pretty much required that, you get it off of all metal parts including chain, cassette, rotors, bolts, etc. Depending on the ride I've also had to pull the fork because enough has flung up into the lower headset bearing that it'll be problematic if left alone.
By design it doesn't just rinse off, so time and a lot of water and a brush with soap (typically dish soap) and a rag is needed to get it clean and back to a sane state. And sometimes disassembly.
I'm mostly thinking of dirt roads which have been treated with a chloride spray. And I'm being a wee bit hyperbolic with the cleanup time, but an hour ride can result in an hour+ of cleanup if I need to get the (corrosive) chloride gunk out of all the bits around brake rotors, in the cassette, and all the little spaces around the crank arms.
We have a lot of very sandy soil around here as well, so if it's really wet the dirt absolutely tears up brake pads.
(That's a worst case.)
A particularly pointed example is the Iceman Cometh Challenge bike race. It's 2-3 hours for most people, but after the bad-conditions years it was common for folks to be replacing brake pads, jockey wheels, and aluminum chainrings. Plus the added suspension seal wear because for most of the event the seals were working hard clearing gunk from the stanchions.
EDIT: Or Barry-Roubaix, a gravel race in Southwest Michigan (US) that's on similar roads. Typically a 2 hour race for the most popular distance, but on some of the wet years it absolutely trashed bikes due to all the abrasive muck being thrown around.
