Alex: You've got your brand new bike, and it is amazing, but after a few rides, it gets quite
grubby and just doesn't have that new bike feel to it anymore, and it loses its shine,
but fear not because I've got the best methods to keep your bike in tip-top condition, and,
best of all, it's actually not that tricky. Stick around and I'll show you guys how it's done. But
before we get going, I want to know, do you use Bike Specific cleaning products or not? Head over
to the GCN app and get voting. [music]
When you've invested in a new bike, I think a fundamental part of ownership
is to know how to clean it properly. Sure, not everyone needs to know how to fix their bike,
but cleaning it is a crucial part to owning a new bike. Not only does a clean bike look great,
it also lasts longer and is going to be better for it. But what do you need to keep your bike
in tip-top shape? Well, there are loads of amazing bike cleaning products out there, and the better
the quality you can afford to buy the better it is, and the easier it's going to make the job,
but you don't need to invest into all of these because, with just a few key products,
you can get very similar results. To make my life even easier, today I'm using a bike stand, but,
again, you don't have to have that, you could just rest your bike up against a fence,
or wall, and it's just going to take a little bit longer. The guys at Muc-Off have been kind enough
to send over some amazing products for us to use today. Luckily enough, we've got this amazing
jet wash too. I know for a fact that Ollie has wanted one of these for absolutely ages,
but, being the new guy, I've been lucky enough to get one almost straight away.
A couple of the key products we're going to use today is the bike shampoo and a Bio Degreaser.
The degreaser is great at getting all the grit and grime off of your drive chain,
but you don't want to spray it directly into your bearings because, well,
it's going to strip the grease out of those, too, and nobody wants that. Whilst you need to
be careful with where you spray the degreaser, you don't need to be quite so careful with the
bike shampoo because that's safe on all the components of your bike. Don't worry about that
one. Whilst we're using a jet wash today, this is a Bike Specific jet wash, and it differs to what
you clean your guard and patio. This operates at a pressure much more suitable for a bike.
Before we start using any of our fancy cleaning products, we're going to need to just go round
the bike with our jet wash and blast off any loose grit, dirt, and grime that we can. Let's
do it now. [music]
With the loose dirt all blasted off, the first point we're going to move to is our drivetrain
to clean that up because, well, it's the dirtiest part of the bike. What we're going to do here
is take our Bio Degreaser, apply it to all of the dirty drivetrain components,
and give it a minute to soak in, before giving a good old scrub with a brush.
Scrub a dub dub. [chuckles] [music]
When you're cleaning the chain, it's important to remember to clean both sides of the chain and all
the other components, not just the side that you can see straight away, and make sure you
keep this brush just for those greasy components. Don't go washing your frame with it afterwards.
Whilst this is all soaking in, we can take our bucket and go and get some nice warm water ready
for the next steps. [music]
Is this an incredibly small brush or I just got massive hands? Who knows.
[music] We've got our
bucket of hot water and the degreaser has had a couple of minutes to work its magic. Next up,
we need to blast it all off, and make sure we thoroughly wash it off to get it all
out nice and clean. At this stage, we can check the chain to see if it's as clean as we like,
and if it's not quite clean enough, well, we'll just repeat the process again until the chain
is super clean. [music]
Having washed all the degreaser off the chain, as I said, we can then just
check it with our finger, and you can see here, my finger's still a bit dirty, so
I guess I better do it all again and make sure we get that super clean chain.
[music] We've got our chain super clean,
top job. That's one of the first crucial jobs done. Next up, snow foam the bike,
one of my favorite jobs. [chuckles] [music]
Attached to the jet wash is just our normal bike cleaner. If you haven't got this,
you can just spray it on everywhere. We need to make sure we cover all parts of the bike,
ready for the next step, giving it a good scrub and brush everywhere
off. [music]
If you're using a bike stand like I am, we can then remove the wheels
and use a nice soft brush like this to work our way around every single part of the bike,
including the wheels that we've taken out, and give everything a thorough clean.
If you need to get into any small little gaps, you can just use a smaller brush, too.
It's important to remember to get every little part of the bike. Don't forget the handlebars.
We can scrub away all the sweat and germs that build up there, and make sure it's nice and clean.
Another area that many people forget is underneath the bottom bracket.
Whilst we're cleaning all these parts of the bike, we can also inspect them as well,
to make sure there's no damage or problems that we might run into while we're out on the road,
and save ourselves the walk of shame home. [music]
Having given everything a thorough wash, we can then put the wheels back into the bike,
and give everything a blast off to make sure it's all cleaned thoroughly and washed off with nice,
clean water. Don't worry, though, because the products we're using are actually biodegradable,
but make sure you check yours are, too. [music]
We've got our bike thoroughly washed off. Next, we need to dry and lubricate the bike correctly.
To make life a little bit easier, we can leave it to dry, naturally, whilst we tidy up the stuff
we've already used and don't need to use anymore. [music]
To dry the frame, I'm going to use a soft microfiber cloth. To dry the drivetrain
and train components, I'm going to use an old rag because, well,
like we do with the brushes, it's best to keep the chain one separate from the nice one for the
frame. What we'll do, we'll work our way around the entire bike, and whilst we're doing it,
we can check all the components over again to make sure nothing is damaged or broken and avoid any
problems later on. [music]
To clean the chain, it's quite a simple process of just taking your cloth, putting the chain through
here, and then you can just peddle the bike backwards, run the cloth through, and clean all
the little components as they're moving around to make sure it's nice and dry, and, again,
super clean. You should have it, now, clean enough that you can even use your best white T-shirt.
[music] You've got a clean and dry bike. All
that remains is to correctly lubricate the chain. There's lots of different chain lubes out there,
such as these. I'm going to use the wet lube today because it's wintery and wet time outside.
Whist you're there, any areas that you haven't been able to get into to dry correctly, you
can spray something like this, which is a water dispersing spray, to make sure the water doesn't
sit into those bearings and cause any corrosion. Another step here, which some people quite like to
do, is to use Bike Protect or a detail finisher. A tip that I've got for these is to spray them
onto a cloth, then you can wipe them on the bike, rather than spraying them directly onto the frame
and risking contaminating to any of the brake components.
[music] There's loads of
different cleaning products available, and it's worth checking the instructions for the products
that you've got. There you have it, how to keep your bike super clean. I hope you've enjoyed this
video, and if you have, give it a big thumbs up. If you've got any good tips of your own,
why not get those down in the comment section? Anyway, now my bike's super clean,
I'm off to get some cool pics of it and submitting them for the bike vault. Fingers crossed it
makes it in next week's tech show. [00:08:59] [END OF AUDIO]