Washing Your Bike

Besides making your bike look better, washing your bike allows you to see and feel any items that may need maintenance, repair, or replacement. Also, after washing your bike, you get the feeling of gratitude for your bike. You admire its design and engineering; at least that’s how it goes for me.

This is how I wash my track bikes. It is an evolving process. Some things are almost set in stone, others, I’m open to a better way.

I like to start with the dirtiest parts first. You could start with a wash mitt and work your way top to bottom. However, once that wash mitt touches the underside of the tail, drive-side of the swingarm or rear wheel, you just got a bunch of oil and/or grease in your wash mitt.

Chain: I start with the chain and everything the chain lube flings onto. Leave the water turned off and set your wash mitt and bucket to the side. However, put your bike on a rear bike stand and snap on your doctor’s (Nitrile) gloves. I use Motul’s Chain Cleaner and a quarter-cut of a Costco microfiber towel. A full microfiber towel is too large to waste on one chain cleaning. With your nitrile gloves on, spray the cleaner onto a dry chain and some onto the towel. Then, wipe down the chain as you rotate the wheel. Wipe down any other parts that have chain lube on it. If you wet the bike or hose off the chain first, the chain cleaner isn’t very effective, in my experience. I used to use a Grunge Brush, but the bristles are too stiff and any dirt caught in those bristles will scratch the surface of a gold chain.

Brakes: The second messiest thing. With your bike still on the rear bike stand, put your bike on the front stand. Like the rear stand, this allows you to rotate the wheels without moving the bike. If there’s one thing almost set in stone, it’s Griot’s Garage Heavy Duty Wheel Cleaner. This stuff is amazing for what it can do to your wheels and brake calipers, or anything that has brake (iron) dust on it. I also use it on the chain when cleaning the rear wheel. However, if you use it on your chain there will be some flash-rust on some of the chain’s pins and rollers. But you are going to lube your chain anyways. I spray the Heavy Duty Wheel Cleaner onto the front wheel, calipers, lower parts of the forks and lower inner fairing (behind the front wheel). Let it soak for a minute or two, careful not to let it dry. Then scrub with brushes and rinse off.

For a more thorough cleaning of the calipers, I remove the calipers from the wheel. Removing and cleaning one caliper at a time. I remove the brake pads from the caliper, spray them with Heavy Duty Wheel Cleaner and let them soak in a small bucket. While the pads are soaking, I spray and agitate with a toothbrush the calipers and caliper pistons. Rinse, then repeat the same process for the brake pads, pad pins and pad springs.

Now that the dirtiest parts are clean, I clean the rear wheel, then the rest of the bike; including all its cracks and crevasses. An assortment of brushes makes a huge difference in the cleanliness of your bike.