If you want a clean garage, you need to clean stuff before bringing it inside—stuff like
mountain bikes.
But that’s not the only reason you should clean your bike.
It actually works better and weighs less when it’s not gunked up.
So this week we’re building a dedicated wash station to make things a little bit easier.
Of course, we had one of these back at Berm Creek and it was great.
In fact, quite a few other YouTube channels built wash stations of their own after that
and while I’d like to take credit for inspiring them, bike wash stations have been at trailheads
around the world for decades.
Their designs vary from a dedicated spot for washing bikes, concrete pads with drains,
To raised wooden platforms like the one we’ll be building today.
Except ours is going to have some goodies attached to it.
And obviously it’s all going right here.
There’s good drainage, a water spigot, and Drama’s been doing his dirt here so the
grass will all be dead soon anyway.
First thing’s first, we need to dig some holes for our footings.
If this platform were for horses or pianos I’d be digging these holes much deeper and
wider.
But for our purposes, these will do just fine.
We’ll pour in a third of a bag of concrete mix, and throw in some water.
Then tamp it down flat.
Now with the magic of editing, we’ll skip the part where we let the concrete set, and
push on.
Now these holes vary in depth, but these 2x8’s still need to be level.
So I’m tacking them in place with screws, making any necessary adjustments, and then
sealing the deal with lag screws.
I’ll be using a whole lot of these once we get to building stuff out on Berm Peak.
And speaking of which, I started cutting my way to the future Berm Peak trailhead.
If it didn’t rain so much last week this video would probably be about that, but we
should be out there building stuff real soon.
So, thanks for your patience while we knock out these other non-bike related projects.
Here’s something I’ve never used before: joist hangers.
I’m tacking them each in place temporarily with a screw, getting everything in place,
and then nailing them in.
I’m sure I could have mounted the hangers first, but they’d be in the wrong place,
guaranteed.
They make screws you can use for this, but its been so long since I’ve used a hammer
and nails that I thought it would be interesting.
Most competent framers can drive a 10 penny nail in 1 to 3 hits.
For me, not so much.
On to the deck planks.
Now, all this lumber is treated for outdoor use so it’s soaked in this nasty greenish
preservative.
Once that dries out I can sand and stain this deck, or even paint it to match the house.
But today we won’t be doing that.
On the topic of treated lumber, I probably should be using gloves.
Getting a splinter from this stuff is like injecting poison into yourself.
Here, we’re gonna do a little plumbing before installing the planks.
In addition to a hose for washing bikes, we’ll be routing some water for use on a shoe bidet.
A standard bidet is used to wash your—butt.
But this is for the bottom of your shoes.
It consists of a boot scrubber I got from the hardware store, and a spot sprinkler with
the ends cut off for size.
Open this valve, and it’ll shoot water up at the soles of your shoes as you scrub the
mud off them.
I could have split these at the spigot and saved myself all this plumbing work, but the
idea is that I’ll only have one hose to disconnect in the winter.
If we’re to use this wash station year round, we can’t leave it hooked up during a freeze.
I learned that at my last house the hard way.
Now, on to the finishing touches.
I left a lot of extra post here to install a railing.
Not that you could fall very far off this deck, but it will look nice.
Plus, we can use the top of the railing hang wet riding gear, or to place something down
at chest height while cleaning.
Just like the last wash station, we’re using a pipe flange and pipe as a bike hanger.
It’s simple and it works.
For the tops of the posts, we’re installing these solar lights which are designed to fit
4x4’s.
You can take bets on how long these will continue working.
And to keep gloves up off the ground while drying, I’m installing two dowels.
These will need to be pulled and treated at a later date.
And finally, because this wash station is a trailhead amenity…
The Berm Peak wash station is for bikes and dogs, not horses.
That pipe flange would most certainly fail.
And on the other side of this marker is an Easter egg.
Look familiar?
As it turns out, Berm Peak isn’t far from some of my favorite trails.
Good trails are often out in the sticks.
So, I’m able to get in more rides now, early in the morning while the temperature and clouds
are still low.
With easier access to mountain bike trails, and the trails we’ll be building in the
yard, this wash station will be getting a lot of use.
Washing a mountain bike is not complicated.
Just brush the dirt off and use a light spray to rinse it.
You may need to re-lube the drivetrain afterwards, but that’s pretty simple too.
This wash station is a lot better than the last one, if only because I don’t need to
drag the hose across the yard to use it.
The shoe bidet is kind of amazing and doesn’t soak the actual shoe as much as other methods.
And since this wash station has a Southern exposure, all my gear can dry out real well
before it gets put away.
Were I to build this over, I might have mounted the hose a bit closer to the bike hanger—this
looks kind of pointless.
But as I said, the idea was to be able to disconnect this whole thing in one shot, and
we achieved that.
I hope you enjoyed this build, even though we already made a wash station last year.
Now that we have all this infrastructure in place, we can get back to hacks, product reviews,
and of course, the treacherous slopes of Berm Peak.
Thanks for riding with me today and I’ll see you next time.