Translate

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Cleaning Bike

Just saw this post on bike cleaning. Takes them a lot less time than it takes me.


Particularly interesting to me is the chain and cassette technique. While I've painstakingly avoided the use of soap and water, worrying that water on a clean chain will lead to rust, they embrace it. It's possible that pro bike teams also replace their bike chains after every race, but it's also possible that the subsequent re-greasing of the chain flushes out the water.

The brush collection is also handy, particularly that hub brush. Trying to squeeze my meaty hands between the spokes with a rag to clean the hub has never been particularly effective. That hub brush looks quite handy.

Of course I suppose that it's inherently much faster to wash a bike that gets washed every day is bound to be faster than washing mine, which if they're lucky get a wipe-down every 2 months...

2 comments:

Max said...

One of my greatest failings as well. It is so nice to ride a clean and lubed machine. What's the excuse?

I used to clean the C-dale after every ride. Hook up that silly chain cleaning machine with degreaser, wipe down the frame and brakes, and re-lube. That lasted for a month or so.

Max said...

On second viewing, still impressive. Not sure how much was the good brushes or good technique. You have to believe he apprenticed with a race team doing nothing but cleaning bikes from 6 pm to 10 pm every race day. After a year of that . . .

Would love to find one of those chain keepers he is using. The fork/bottom bracket repair stand is also pretty nice.