How do you clean your bike

[tyred]

I finish off with furniture polish on the frame and rims which puts a good water repellant finish on them.

Do you use furniture polish on bikes with rim brakes? I would have thought that would have had an effect on braking performance.

 

[Plax]

Can anyone confirm if the muc off step 3 is adequate as a lubricant on its own or is it pretty much a posher version of WD-40?

 

[mickle]

https://www.cyclechat.net/

 

[slepycitron]

For a quick de-crudding I just put a car brush on the hose pipe and rinse and brush using just water. The water here is compltely soft so there are no little white marks left afterwards.

Beyond that car shampoo works well, and anything left gets cleaned off with WD40. WD40's excellent as a cleaner - really gets grease and tar off well - but I don't use it near any bearings or the chain.

If I'm doing a thorough wash I take the wheels and chain off so I can get to all of the frame, it also makes cleaning the rims and hubs easier. The chain gets a Mickle Method treatment, as that's really quick and easy with the thing off, and so is scraping any gunge off the chainrings, cassette and jockey wheels.

I finish off with furniture polish on the frame and rims which puts a good water repellant finish on them.

 

[slepycitron]

Hello. I find diesel and a toothbrush, or paintbrush clean the chain, derailleurs and chainset quite well. I still have some diesel/petrol mixed from when my daughter got muddled up at the pumps and I had to drain her tank. The mistake turned out to be a blessing!

 

[400bhp]

Generally I do the following:


1. excluding chain & drive: wipe off crud with a rag/brush. Spray gt85 everywhere bar the chain/freewheel. Wipe off. Reapply again if necessary. Use it to force crud out of anywhere where there are moving parts/bolts.

2. If including the chain then follow the above but wipe down chain with rag which is soaked in a bit of degreaser. Making sure I dry the chain to remove the degreasant.

3. If chain is really dirty then follow above but clean cassette/chainring/jockey wheels with degreaser & rag/toothbrush/anything to get in between the rings. Then use chain cleaner tool filled with degreaser (will switch to white spirit once my supply has run out as its much cheaper) making sure you go through the gears. Dry chain with cloth and repeat chain cleaner but filled with water waahing up liquid. Dry and lube.

4. Once or twice a year. Remove chain/chainwheels/jockeys/any other parts that look like they need a once over. Soak in white spirit. Scrub & clean as necessary.

 

[Cubist]

Babywipes???!!???

Yeah, right!

 

[mickle]

Babywipes???!!???

Yeah, right!

Ha!

 

[Davidc]

Do you use furniture polish on bikes with rim brakes? I would have thought that would have had an effect on braking performance.

I keep it off the braking surfaces by putting the polish on the cloth. As with the paintwork it just leaves the rims (the bits facing the hub) shiny and water repellent. If I'm really bored I do the spokes as well.

The way I clean my brake surfaces makes most people cringe and involves a substance I dont use on chains! I do that after wheel cleaning to get any polish or detergent off and I've always found that the brakes work really well and quietly afterwards but I don't recommend it to other people.

The other thing I do for the brakes while the wheels are off is to resurface them with one of my wifes nail filing emery boards, again after the car shampoo and any other substances have been used and have dried.

I'm not the world's or this forum's most fastidious bike cleaner and have to admit that the really thorough clean only happens in spring and autumn, th rest of the time it's usually just a bucket of shampoo and a going over with hose and brush as and when the bikes are filthy

Oh, and I don't use baby wipes. Strikes me as a fussy and expensive way to do the job.

 

[Zoiders]

Not the sodding WD40 jihad again.

It's a light distillate for cleaning, water displacement and prevention of corrosion.

Plenty of other products are as just as unsuitable for stand alone use as a lube, that does not make them bad products though.

Use WD by all means but wipe the chain down and add some plain old bike oil after.

 

[Davidc]

Not the sodding WD40 jihad again.

It's a light distillate for cleaning, water displacement and prevention of corrosion.

Plenty of other products are as just as unsuitable for stand alone use as a lube, that does not make them bad products though.

Use WD by all means but wipe the chain down and add some plain old bike oil after.

Does the three things you say really well, and is by far the best thing I've found for getting road tar off cars and bikes, and for getting the oily gunge that develops on the RH chain stay off!

 

[mickle]

Not the sodding WD40 jihad again.

It's a light distillate for cleaning, water displacement and prevention of corrosion.

Plenty of other products are as just as unsuitable for stand alone use as a lube, that does not make them bad products though.

Use WD by all means but wipe the chain down and add some plain old bike oil after.

Hopefully you'll be able to tell us what effect WD40 has on the 'plain old bike oil' after.

 

[Zoiders]

Hopefully you'll be able to tell us what effect WD40 has on the 'plain old bike oil' after.

It might thin it out ever so slightly and that's about it.

Not a concern - in fact current WD40 has a teflon content so it might actually improve the water resistance slightly.

 

[rb58]

I find the cassette comes up really nicely after a session in the dishwasher.

 

[mickle]

It might thin it out ever so slightly and that's about it.

Not a concern.

So it would lower the viscosity of my expensive especially formulated chain lube. Are you sure that's all it does? What evidence do you have that 'that's about it'.