bicycle repair Tip How I wash my mountain bikes > Bicycle Repair Tips

 

I hose off my bikes after every trail ride,
so usually the big stuff never gets a chance
to dry up and cake on.
As needed, I'll do a slightly deeper cleaning
to get to the stuff I missed during post ride
hose offs.
This is what we'll be covering today.
The first thing you should know is that spraying
your bike with water won’t hurt it.
What can hurt your bike is high pressure water
which can actually force dirt into moving
parts like bearings.
To avoid this, I keep my hose on a medium
spray, and take care not to blast the ends
of the hubs, the bottom bracket, or anywhere
else with a bearing seal.
Everything else gets blasted.
To loosen up grime in the cassette, I use
a little WD-40 and a brush.
This is the same way I clean my chain and
the pulleys on my derailleur.
You could use Simple Green, or any other degreaser
for this purpose, but just remember that these
are all solvents.
Solvents remove grease and oil from your bike.
WD-40 is sometimes mistaken for a lubricant,
but it’s not.
WD-40 is a solvent, and it’s great for cleaning.
As for this brush I'm using, it's okay, but
I used to use a dollar store toilet brush,
and in some ways it was actually better.
The long bristles you’ll find on a toilet
brush can really get all up in that cassette.
The rest of my bike gets cleaned with a rag
and dish soap.
Not very high tech, but it gets the job done.
You might also notice that between these two
mountain bikes there's only one front wheel.
So yeah, that's one less thing I need to clean
today.
While drying your bike with a towel helps
prevent water spots, I just drop them from
a couple of feet up to shake them off.
You could also ride your bike dry.
To me, bike cleaning is more for maintenance
purposes than it is for cosmetics so I'm not
concerned with them being showroom clean.
After all, mountain bikes look better when
they're dirty anyway.
Thanks for riding with me today, and I'll
see you next time.