Okay, so let's look at doing a really thorough bike wash. It's something I do
after a really dirty ride or before a proper service of the bike.
I'm going to start taking the wheels off and things like that.
Start off hosing it off, just try and get the worst of that mud off.
You can use a jet wash, but bear in mind that jet washes will blast out all the
grease in your bearings. So, if you do, just be careful about where you blast it.
I'll start off by going round the tires, blasting all that dirt out the tire tread,
and then start working from the top down on the bike, not forgetting to go under
the seat and under the frame. With a full suspension bike with linkages,
I'm going to get the hose so I can spray in behind these, fork as well.
You have these little recesses in the back of the crown, wash those out,
and also up there inside the steerer.
So, now the worst of it's off and it's still wet, I'm going to get in there with
a bit of bike cleaner and a brush to get that real stubborn stuff off.
It's always good to use proper bike cleaner. It's formulated so that it
doesn't ruin your disc pads or anything like that, or it's too harsh on your
paint. So, use bike cleaner if you can.
So, spraying quite a lot of this stuff on, also going round the wheels,
getting in the back of the cassette. I'm going to spin the bike around in a second
and give the chain and a cassette a good going-over with this.
And once it's on there, give it a brush, get rid of any of that stuff that's still
stuck on there. Go around your chain, around your cassette, spin that on there.
And it's worth leaving this on the bike for a couple of minutes to work its magic.
So, cleaner's been on for a couple of minutes now. I've gone over with a brush
to get any of that stubborn stuff moving, now I want to hose it all off.
Starting at the top of the bike and under the seat, I'm then going to work my way
down. Now that the bike's all hosed off, I'm going to give the chain a really good
clean. If you've got a bike stand, now's a good time to put it in there.
There's a few different options for this. You could use a stiff little brush.
These sponges are pretty good, it's a really coarse sponge with a slice down the
middle of it so I can run the chain through it. Or the best option is one of
those little chain cleaners where you fill it with detergent, spin the chain through
it. It doesn't really matter. That's probably the easiest way of doing it.
That probably takes the most elbow grease. But it should work the same, hopefully.
I'm going to use some of this foaming chain cleaner. It's good because it's
really strong, so it's going to get any of that sticky stuff off your chain.
You don't necessarily need to use that, you can just use your normal
bike cleaner and just give it a real good coat of that, and give it a good going
over with a brush.
So, whilst that degreaser is doing its stuff, I'm going to use my brush,
go around the cassette, and then give that chain a really good scrub.
Work inside those jockey wheels on your mech as well. Okay, so now it's time to
give that a hose off.
Chain's all clean, so now it's time to take wheels off and get in behind the
chainstays and seat stays and get into all those nooks and crannies.
Again, I'm going to go back, use some wash and a brush. The linkages on this part are
quite easy to get into with a brush. You might find on your bike
they're quite tight. You might want to find yourself a nice little brush to get
in there, just to get any, you know, really horrible stuff that's stuck in
there out of there.
So, with the wheel out, it's much easier now to get in and give this a cassette a
really good clean. Again, I'm going to use this foaming degreaser and a brush and get
the sticky stuff off there.
So, with the bike all clean and back together, I now work on the chain.
You want to get that chain dried and lubed before it has a chance to rust.
So, I use a dirty rag first and just run that chain through it and try and
get most of that water out of it. Chain is really clean and dry now.
Run it through my fingers, no black stuff coming off at all, so that's great.
Now it's time to re-lube it.
So, re-lubing the chain. The most important part of this is to be really
careful about getting anything onto that rear disc. That's going to make it make a
horrible noise and not work properly. So, be especially careful if you're using
spray, and if you're doing that, I'd use it right down here. I'm using a little
squeezy bottle, so I'm okay to put it down by the rear mech. And I drop it into the
top of the chain, just in front of that jockey wheel. Just a small amount,
run it through. If you're spraying it down here, I would then run the wheel through
with a dirty rag, and clean any of that over spray off your rim.
Okay, so there's a couple more little extras if you want to put some finishing
touches to your bike. You can use some of this silicone spray to give that bike a
nice shine. Again, just be really careful you don't get any of that onto your discs
or your brake pads. So, I tend to use a rag just to stop any overspray and give
the bike a bit of a once-over. It's going to give it a really nice shine.
I call it "BS Spray," Work that one out for yourself.
I'm going to use a little bit of suspension lube spray. It's just really
thin oil. So, get a bit of this on the shock, and give that shock seal a good
wipe round, make sure there's nothing stuck to that. So, now I'm going to give
the fork seal a little clean out. I use a zip tie for this, just to slide in between
the fork leg and that seal. Don't use anything hard like a screwdriver,
obviously, that'll damage it. Just use a nice, soft zip tie and get it in there
and work some lube into those seals. Okay, so I'm just being really careful to
spray a little bit of this lube onto the stanch and so it runs down, and then
I'm working the zip tie around this fork seal so that it lets oil drop
down and just fit into that oil seal.
So, with the bike now off the stand, grab the front brake and just push on that
fork. You'll see it just drags any of that dust out of those seals, then going to
wipe it off and repeat that maybe once or twice more until that comes clean.
So, you won't have any of that muck and dust set on your fork stanchion.
That's the seal nice and clean and lubed.
Okay, so there we go. I only took me about 20 or 30 minutes. The bike's really clean,
ready to roll. It's also a really good chance to give that bike a visual check
over, look for any damage, and you'll know when things need a bit of work
as well. Also extends the life of your components, especially your chain,
if it's nice and clean all the time.
For more videos from GMBN, you can click up here for Marc Beaumont,
and he shows you how to service your headset. That's well worth doing after a
few really big, deep cleans of your bike. And also for our top 10 mountain bike
accessories, click down here and let us know what you think. If you found this
video useful, click "Like" down below, and if you want to subscribe to GMBN,
click on me.