How often should you wash your bike?

[raleighnut]

I normally completely strip, clean and rebuild one of em every year. Last year it was the Raleigh Equipe but I also fitted the Ultegra triple that was to be used on the aborted Mercian purchase along with the 105 GS rear mech I nicked off the Raleigh Road Ace.The Year before it was my 3 speed Raleigh City and the year before that my Ridgeback.
This years will be the Raleigh Road Ace which will get the 105 short rear mech and HT11 crank that was on the Equipe (to replace the horrible black one that's currently fitted) but I'm toying with the idea of repainting the frame too. Other than that I just oil and wipe the chain down and dribble some oil into the bearings/pivots when needed.

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

With my old landy it turned into give it a look over and lose a weekend fixing it, most weekends,

Little and often. Every time you notice something that needs doing, note it down and deal with it on the next tinkering weekend. If you neglect them and just put fuel in and nothing else, like people do with a modern car, eventually you end up with a nightmare backlog of faults. I picked up a very cheap but neglected and bodged one some years ago and it took me ages to get on top of all the stuff that was wrong with it. I had a list of about 4 or 5 sides of A4 at one stage with all the known issues. Good job I do DIY, because a garage would have charged me more than the price of a new one to sort everything out.

 

[Pale Rider]

The posts on here about Land Rovers needing constant fettling baffle me.

We had one on the farm on which I grew up.

It wasn't a pet project or a townle's toy, it was a working vehicle.

We used it around the farm, and for lots of little jobs which required a mixture of farm and road use.

These included collecting bags of feed of which we used little, such as bags of feed for a diet top up for the chickens when they couldn't get what they needed around the yard.

Several times I was sent to collect a few gallon containers of Gramoxone weedkiller - also known as paraquat - proper strong gear which you wouldn't be allowed to use now.

One of the local farmer's wives used a teaspoonful in the gravy to murder her husband, but that's another story.

I also recall using the Land Rover to take the occasional dead sheep to the local hunt kennels for the dogs, depending on what the sheep died of.

The Land Rover was the first vehicle I drove at the age of about 12 - throttle control was difficult across a bumpy field.

We rarely used four wheel drive, chunky tyres were sufficient for farm tracks and crossing fields put to pasture.

The Land Rover was handy for collecting bits required for the other farm machinery - most maintenance was done on site.

Ours was a short wheelbase petrol with the narrow set headlights, and I recall it had a couple of snipped bike inner tubes as covers for the tailgate chains.

No locks on the doors, but it did have the optional plug in heater, which made a whirring noise rather than provide any heat.

I can't recall it breaking down, although I suppose it may have done.

The charging system conked out, but we just used the starting handle for a few months until someone got around to fixing it.

The long gear stick snapped - fixed in a few minutes with the welding torch.

It was certainly no show winner, but was kept tidy-ish and road worthy.

We had that Land Rover for a good few years, which we wouldn't have done were it not useful and reliable - farm vehicles had to earn their keep.

 

[weareHKR]

The posts on here about Land Rovers needing constant fettling baffle me.

What baffles me is, we've gone from washing bikes to the efficiency of Land Rovers...

 

[rogerzilla]

Better than US forums, where most discussions on build quality or reliability usually end up in a comparison of firearms!

 

[roubaixtuesday]

One of the local farmer's wives used a teaspoonful in the gravy to murder her husband, but that's another story.

I used to work at the factory where paraquat was made.

After gaining the reputation of a poisoner's best friend, the formulation was changed with the addition of an emetic, a chemical designed to make you vomit to prevent poisoning.

The emetic was known on site as "parapuke"

 

[Pale Rider]

I used to work at the factory where paraquat was made.

After gaining the reputation of a poisoner's best friend, the formulation was changed with the addition of an emetic, a chemical designed to make you vomit to prevent poisoning.

The emetic was known on site as "parapuke"

I quite liked the smell of the original, it was rich, sweet, a little like molasses.

It probably improved the taste of gravy.

Gramoxone was an ICI brand, if I recall correctly.

We used to use it heavily diluted in a beam sprayer, which was hooked to the hydraulic arms of a tractor.

Typically for farms in those days, we took no storage or handling precautions.

Our stock was left to lie in the corner of a nissen hut, which provided shelter but nothing else.

 

[Notafettler]

Better than US forums, where most discussions on build quality or reliability usually end up in a comparison of firearms!

And now we moved onto poisoning but no comparisons? Proper British way of getting rid of your partner.

 

[raleighnut]

And now we moved onto poisoning but no comparisons? Proper British way of getting rid of your partner.

Arsenic and old Lace.

 

[DCBassman]

I spray the transmission with a little GT85 before a ride.
Afterwards, a wipe down to remove any gunk, then another dose of GT85. This seems to be enough for my relatively low annual mileage.

 

[Drago]

The posts on here about Land Rovers needing constant fettling baffle me.

We had one on the farm on which I grew up.

It wasn't a pet project or a townle's toy, it was a working vehicle.

We used it around the farm, and for lots of little jobs which required a mixture of farm and road use.

These included collecting bags of feed of which we used little, such as bags of feed for a diet top up for the chickens when they couldn't get what they needed around the yard.

Several times I was sent to collect a few gallon containers of Gramoxone weedkiller - also known as paraquat - proper strong gear which you wouldn't be allowed to use now.

One of the local farmer's wives used a teaspoonful in the gravy to murder her husband, but that's another story.

I also recall using the Land Rover to take the occasional dead sheep to the local hunt kennels for the dogs, depending on what the sheep died of.

The Land Rover was the first vehicle I drove at the age of about 12 - throttle control was difficult across a bumpy field.

We rarely used four wheel drive, chunky tyres were sufficient for farm tracks and crossing fields put to pasture.

The Land Rover was handy for collecting bits required for the other farm machinery - most maintenance was done on site.

Ours was a short wheelbase petrol with the narrow set headlights, and I recall it had a couple of snipped bike inner tubes as covers for the tailgate chains.

No locks on the doors, but it did have the optional plug in heater, which made a whirring noise rather than provide any heat.

I can't recall it breaking down, although I suppose it may have done.

The charging system conked out, but we just used the starting handle for a few months until someone got around to fixing it.

The long gear stick snapped - fixed in a few minutes with the welding torch.

It was certainly no show winner, but was kept tidy-ish and road worthy.

We had that Land Rover for a good few years, which we wouldn't have done were it not useful and reliable - farm vehicles had to earn their keep.

Mrs D banned me from owning any more Land Rovers as I was spending considerably more time mending and welding than I was driving.

 

[Pale Rider]

Mrs D banned me from owning any more Land Rovers as I was spending considerably more time mending and welding than I was driving.

We remade the back end on ours after an attempt to tow something ridiculously heavy resulted in a rear box girder detachment catastrophe.

Weren't several of the body panels ally, even in the 60s?

 

[raleighnut]

We remade the back end on ours after an attempt to tow something ridiculously heavy resulted in a rear box girder detachment catastrophe.

Weren't several of the body panels ally, even in the 60s?

The majority were Aluminium from day 1. Mostly 'War Surplus' I believe.

 

[palinurus]

Just before it goes into the bike shop for some work on it.

I'm pretty relaxed about bike cleaning but this is one circumstance that'll definitely get me outside with a bucket of soapy water.

 

[palinurus]

I was spending considerably more time mending and welding than I was driving.

That's the kind of ratio I like.