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Bike cleaning????
The recent rain has made the trails very wet and very muddy! Does anyone have a suggestion on the best way to clean a very muddy bike?
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There is no magic genie solution that I know of. If your at your own place, you'll have to use your own elbow grease on that one. If your out, then drop by a self-service car wash that has high pressure water cleaners. They work good too.
so hosing your bike wont do it any harm???
The most I would use would be gentle pressure from a garden hose, whilst I water the lawn on a Sunday arvo of course. High pressure hosing can push the fine dirt and grit that abound on our local trails into places that nothing short of complete stripping will remove, stripping of the bike parts that is.
Wet it down then use a very soft brush to remove the dirt and then rinse again. When its dry I then use a rag with a little WD40 on it to get the shine back on my anodised frame and proprietary degreasers and lubes to clean / lube all moving parts. Obviously this is my opinion only and others will probably disagree, but it does seem to work well for me.
Its all a part of the fun of riding isn't it?
I find a bottle brush works very well for getting into all the tight parts of the frame.
Get yourself a chain cleaner too, and a cassette brush. To be honest, so long as the drive train is clean I don't much care what the rest of my bike looks like. Erm... has anyone noticed?
High pressure jets are a definite no, no for bikes. As Ditty says, pushes dirt into places it wouldn't get on it's own. Plus, of course, hosing of any hard surface (yes, your bike is a hard surface) is banned in Sydney at the mo. It only takes about half a bucket of water to clean the bike after even the most dirty ride.
before I went on a particularly muddy weekend away camping and then just washed the car, the bike and all at the car wash with high pressure jets!! It worked a treat in terms of getting the mud off. Afterwards I did oil all the moving bits up again...it seems to be riding OK, think it will be alright??