Screw The House, Clean Your Bike!

To all of you lazy fatasses (like me), or those in the northern states that get real winter (also, like me) who haven’t touched your bike since October( totally guilty), it’s mid-March. What with all the talk on here lately about diet, excercise and spring cleaning, it occured to me that I need to clean and tune my bike up and get on it as soon as possible; I’m surely not alone in this.

Last year I rode my bike hard and put it away greasy and dirty. Probably not the thing to do, but like I just said, I’m a lazy fatass and there you are. Clearly I’m going to have to get the sucker back up to riding shape, and the first order of business is to clean the gunk and dirt from last year’s riding off of it. Play along with me at home if you wish.

Your necessaries:

• clean rags
• A bucket, and ideally two.
• One big utility sponge, one smaller kitchen sponge
• A couple of good wire or sturdy plastic brushes— a long bristled bathroom scrubber and a round bottle brush will do it for one-time use. There are great bike brush kits that are designed for the purpose and make this job much easier and more efficient.
• Some degreasing soap. Kitchen soap works fine!
• Degreaser (Simple Green’s got a great one)
• Scotch-Brite pads
• All the assorted multi-tools to take parts on and off your bike
• Chain lube (MUST BE LUBE, NOT WD-40 OR ANYTHING ELSE. Light oils with teflon or silicone will be best.)
• Optimal: hose with gentle-stream nozzle

1. The first thing you want is hot soapy water in your buckets. If you only have one bucket, you’ll have to pause halfway through to switch the water out.

2. Take your seat and wheels off. Don’t worry about the chain touching the ground, it’ll get cleaned shortly, but you may wish to put down paper or something to keep your work area from getting greasy. Once the wheels are free, check the tire carefully; Rubber rots under the best of conditions, and if there are any cuts or breaks in the rubber that go all the way through, that’s it, time for new tires. While you’re at it, check to see if the spokes are true, and if the hub is tight.

3. Rinse off the frame thoroughly, either with the hose or the large sponge. Try not to get too much in the bearings in the headset (the thing the handlebar yoke sticks out from).

4. Spray degreaser on the drivetrain and scrub it with your rounded brush; you’ll find that it might take a little work , but it should eat through even the filthiest, grittiest grease your bike might have. This is great for your bike’s performance, and it’ll help preserve the life of your chainset (gears) and chain. Keep the degreaser away from the disc brakes, shocks, brake pads and bearings.

5. You can use the same bucket and brushes to scub the crap off of the rings, cranks, and derailer. Rinse as much as seems appropriate.

6. Clean the rear wheel’s cassette (the wheel gears). Hit it with a little degreaser and run your brush through it thoroughly. Make sure to do this at an angle where any freed crud won’t fly up into your face. Rinse well and lay at an agle to drain.

If you’re only using one bucket, now’s the time to dump it and refill; you don’t want this gritty, greasy water touching anything else from this point forward or it may scratch, or at the very least, spread grease. Obviously, you’ll need to switch out brushes here too.

7. Wash the frame and the rest of the bike starting from the top and working your way down. Use the rags until they’re too dirty and switch out as often as necessary. When done, rinse well, again, starting from the top-down.

8. Clean the wheels with new soapy water and the scotch gaurd pad. Get ‘em shiny before you rinse.

9. Replace the wheels, throw the newly-cleaned chain back on and give the wheels a good spin. Put the seat back on. Inspect to make sure you missed nothing, then use a clean, dry rage top wipe the whole sucker down. Put a drop of lube on every link in the bike chain, wipe them down through a whole revolution, and you’re done!

Take it to a shop for a tune-up if you don’t know how to do that yourself. I ain’t gonna tell you. However, if you do want to do it yourself, good for you. Better man that ol’ lazy fatass here. If you don’t know how, here are good resources for all manner of home bike tuning and repairs:

Utah Moutain Biking
Bike kinetix