Thursday, April 19, 2012

#30daysofbiking: Day 18

Another quick post-work ride. The weather was pretty gloomy this morning so I opted to stay in bed instead. It was still chilly & rainy when I got home, so I just rode the work-horse around the block. Lame, I know. But it still counts.

Instead, I decided to make this a bike maintenance night instead. Kermit desperately needed all the gunk from yesterday's ride cleaned off, and the Work-Horse really needed a drivetrain cleaning.

I live in an apartment, so washing a bike can be a little tricky.

Into the bathtub you go...



I used the shower head attachment to rinse off the dust & dirt, and then just wiped the frame down with a rag. That got about 90% of the grime off (and into my tub. Ugh. Now I have to clean that too).

Then I put Kermit up on the bike stand and worked on the drivetrain a bit more thoroughly. I degreased & scrubbed the cassette & chain, let it dry and lubed the chain. All done!

Kermit went from this:





To this:




(soon he'll have his own parking spot on the wall)

Then it was the Work- Horse's turn. I didn't worry about scrubbing the frame or anything because I can hose it down at work (it does need it though). I focused on the drivetrain which was getting quite grimy. Wasn't too bad though because it cleaned up fairly quickly.

Then I topped off the tires of both bikes with air and voila. Clean(ish) bikes. I really should do this more regularly.


For the record, I used White Lightning Easy Clean spray degreaser(no idea where I picked it up); which uses some sort of voodoo to melt off grime instantly. It's soooo easy that it must use some sort of terrible environment-destroying chemical compound. Normally I use a diluted form of a degreaser like Simple Green with my chain cleaning tool, but I was out of that. The White Lightning worked perfectly...but I can see it getting expensive because I went through an entire can with just two bikes. Then I use Triflow to lube the chain.

Miles: .5
Movie watched while cleaning bikes: Flash Gordon
What does Flash Gordon do now? Professional hostage extractor. Seriously.

2 comments:

  1. Awesome! The photo in the bathtub is hilarious!

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  2. The bathtub?! Spectacular. Very funny, but, I must admit, practical in a small place.

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