pressure washer or hand wash?

[fossyant]

If the MTB is covered in heavy mud, I'll rinse the stuff off with a hose from tyres and frame, but not near bearings (hubs, BB, headset). Then hand wash. If chain is caked, then I'll hose the chain away from the hub, then re-lube.

Pressure washers are way too powerful.

 

[threebikesmcginty]

Post ride simply wheel your bike back into the shed/garage/front room until next required.

 

[Gary E]

Pressure washing is for tractors not for anything you want to keep looking good

 

[Arsen Gere]

Pressure washers can remove the decals from wheels and bikes.

 

[akb]

MTB - Hose pipe to get the mud off and then a wet rag/ Muc Off to remove stubborn dirt. Then a dry rag to dry and buff.

With the Commuter - Rag and Muc off / and then dry rag to dry and buff.

 

[screenman]

So AG please explain how a pressure washer used properly will strip the decals off?

Do you lot never take your bikes out in the rain? same as using a jet washer just the rain lasts longer and is less controllable.

TFR and jet wash is the way for me and always has been, well since they were invented that is.

 

[Deleted member 23692]

If I'm out on my MTB and it gets caked in crud I'll stop at the garage on the way home and pressure wash it. I've never had a problem and used correctly I very much doubt I ever will.

It's all in the aim and the distance

 

[redcard]

I don't get the whole removing grease thing either. It'll be pretty hard to get a direct hit, and even then you'd probably have to be firing water continuously at the exact spot.

 

[400bhp]

Do you lot never take your bikes out in the rain? same as using a jet washer just the rain lasts longer and is less controllable.

 

[Moodyman]

Pressure washers are sh1t.

I see folk using them on their driveways without thinking what it does to the cement in between the flags / bricks.

 

[guitarpete247]

I used to work (as a student, in the summer hols) at a food factory. I had to use a pressure washer and it would strip hammerite off equipment.

 

[TheDoctor]

So AG please explain how a pressure washer used properly will strip the decals off?

Do you lot never take your bikes out in the rain? same as using a jet washer just the rain lasts longer and is less controllable.

TFR and jet wash is the way for me and always has been, well since they were invented that is.

Rain doesn't normally come in at 100 bar.
The word 'pressure' is the crucial one here. A decent pressure washer will take paint off, never mind decals. Get the spray at an angle on an edge of a decal, and it'll just peel off. Well, fly off really.

 

[The Brewer]

It's tool, use it with respect and care.
Sounds like some people are riding around on bikes made of cheese

 

[screenman]

To all you scare mongers, how much pressure hitting the bike when the pressure washer is held 3foot from the bike? or 5 foot.

As I said earlier it is the tool holding the tool.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

If my bikes were made of glass and eggshells and their bearings were lubed with extra virgin olive oil, and I was a cack-handed numpty with the mechanical sympathy of the average house brick, I'd steer well clear of pressure washers.

But they're not and I'm not. So I've been using one for donkeys. In that time one decal, SRAM X0 on a rear mech since you ask, and one bike shop label, Rayments of Brighton, has come off. Other than that no ill effects.