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.
Awesome! The photo in the bathtub is hilarious!
ReplyDeleteThe bathtub?! Spectacular. Very funny, but, I must admit, practical in a small place.
ReplyDelete