One question we get asked a lot is “how often should I clean my bike?” another, “how do I clean my bike?” or “how do you clean yours?”
in short, if it’s dirty post ride and you feel it’ll be embarrassing next time you take it out or if you’re worried some dirt or muck could hamper the performance of the bike next ride then it definitely needs a clean.
I personally have a couple of levels of bike wash depending upon available time, level of muck and frequency of riding, any combination of these factors affect how I wash my bike.
for example if it’s my road bike and it’s just got a bit of road dust and dirt from riding through a few puddles then a quick wash will suffice.
my gravel bike though could be a different story, if might have been on a very muddy, dirty ride and covered in mud, the main thing is to remove the mud from the moving parts and also protect those parts.
in an ideal world I would get buckets, sponges, degreasers, bike wash and lots of post wash products but realistically I don’t have the time and also if I’m going out again on it within the next couple of days I really don’t need to scrub every single component removing vital greases and oils.
looking at the photo above after a typical off road ride there’s dirt, mud and big clumps of mud.
I start by a quick hose to remove as much of the mud and clumps of mud as possible, then cover the entire drivetrain and pedals in drivetrain cleaner possibly give this a bit of a
work with a brush but if you follow this process you won’t need to the next time (hopefully) once you’ve done this reach for your bottle of Nano Tech Bike Cleaner and cover the bike, both sides, completely, then simply leave it for a couple of minutes. Finally just rinse once more with the hose. Occasionally give a brush or sponge but I generally don’t need to, I don’t worry about scrubbing rims and tyres if I’m going to be out again within a day or two. This whole process shouldn’t take you 10 minutes and is perfectly sufficient to maintain your bike.
the next part is probably the most important part, removing the excess water and especially from the drivetrain and moving parts. For this I have 2 microfibre towels- 1 clean , 1 dirty. For the dirty I spray Bike Protect or MO-94 around the chain and mechs and give it a wipe over, then I take the bike protect and spray lightly over the frame, forks, cranks, stem, seatpost ensuring you spray the bolt heads of the stem etc then give a wipe over which will protect the bike from rust and corrosion. Finally choose the correct lube and apply a light coating to your chain , jockey wheels, spring of your spd’s and the moving parts of your mechs. This post wash process once again is no more than 10 minutes work and the more you do it you’ll notice you get quicker and the bike looks cleaner quicker too because the bike protect will also prevent a lot of muck and dirt from sticking.
