This post is going to be just about as exciting as the title alludes to. However, having rekindled my love of mountain biking and having not too long ago spent a small fortune on a new bike, cleaning it has risen to a much higher priority than when I was a lad. Plus there are some definite dos and donts when it comes to cleaning a bike so thought it might be useful to some to share my process for cleaning the bike and turns out its not as painful and arduous as you might think.
First of all we need a dirty bike, fortunately I have one of those. It's not filthy because by some miracle we've not had a drop of rain for best part of a month, however I've managed to accumulate a nice collection of trail dust and a bit of grime:
So that's the mess we have to clear up. I was never too sure whether the purpose made bike cleaners were worth the investment and surely a tub of washing up soapy water would do the job. Turns out, I was wrong and these bike specific cleaners are actually very good. The most well-known is probably Muc-off, I've never bought any though because it's also the most expensive but I do believe it will do a good job. The two main ones I have used are Fenwicks and more recently Kaaboom. I made the switch from Fenwicks purely because that's what my local bike store was stocking at the time, performance wise they're just as effective as each other in my experience. The main advantage of these two is that you can buy an undiluted refill which works out very cost effective (£10-£15 for a litre > makes approx 10 litres when diluted with water).
I use an old 500ml Flash cleaner spray bottle and drop a few mls of the cleaner in and fill the rest with water (Kaaboom offers useful measuring markers on the side of the bottle which is a nice touch). Once diluted, the cleaners are completely safe on the entire bike so I simply cover the bike in the mixture using the spray bottle. I'm quite generous with it and use at least half the bottle but I'm sure you could get away with being a bit more prudent if you really wanted to make it stretch. Starting with the saddle and working down I soak the entire bike, drivetrain, wheels, tyres, everything, even the bars, shifters etc.
By the time you've covered the whole bike you'll notice a lot of the grime already washing away even before any water:
Once the bike is covered I grab the hose and using a fine but fast spray (aka shoving my thumb over the end > fancy hose attachments optional) rinse the cleaner off.
IMPORTANT NOTE: do not allow the hubs, headset or bottom bracket to take a direct jet of water spray, water in these important bearings will have devastating effects and a powerful direct spraying with a hose or pressure washer will do the bike no good. You'll find most of any grime will get picked up as water washes down the bike.
That will most likely have the bike very clean already, if it's particularly grubby or there are a some more stubborn parts then you can either repeat or use the help of some soft brushes to agitate any remaining dirt.
The next important step is to dry off the bike, I use some tork paper towel I keep the in the garage but a chamois or any quality kitchen roll will do the trick. The benefit of this is you mop up any accessible water and also notice any previously not seen remaining bits of dirt which you can just polish up with the paper towel.
Finally (and optionally) I like to give the whole bike a once over with light oil such as GT85, this gives the bike a really nice shine and adds a protective film ready for the next ride, no need to rub it in just a once over spray and leave. Also a good time to give your shifters and cable routes a quick squirt to work out any dirt and keep things running smooth.
IMPORTANT NOTE #2: if you have disk brakes, make sure you don't get anywhere near them with this oil as it'll likely contaminate and ruin your braking, safest bet is to take the wheels off and cover your brakes unless you're very careful.
Et voila, the use of a proper cleaner really makes this a simple job and I get this done in 10 minutes when just doing a quick clean like this.
