Bike Cleaning Mistakes That Ruin Your Bike!

cleaning your bike is something we all have to do but let's face it there are some things that can be easy to get a bit wrong you can end up scrubbing some of your paintwork away you can get muck and filth into your suspension units and worse still you can wear stuff out and ruin your brakes so here's a bunch of common cleaning mistakes you definitely don't want to be making ruining your paint work oh man this is something i've seen people do time and time again and it's definitely a method to getting the best at cleaning your bike now look at the state of this at the moment it's got loads of dried on like mud and muck and feel for this grit in there as well so what you don't want to be doing is just getting to work trying to agitate that straight off the best thing you could possibly do is rinse everything down first don't just start scrubbing away with a brush on there because you're going to work it into that paintwork oh man it just upsets me the thought of people just doing that also you've got to be careful with the types of cleaner you're using now if you're not using a dedicated bike cleaner of course you could be using a number of household products just be cautious of what you use because some household products got really strong chemicals in it now i have seen people in the past using oven cleaner on their bikes oh god i mean ivanka is designed to get grease out the oven but i think what it's going to do like kashima coating and stuff like that you're absolutely going to kill your bike take a bit of care get it nice and wet treat it to a bit of a hose down first so you can get that mud wet get your cleaner on there agitate it and then wash it off that way you're going to look after your paintwork [Music] lube in your bike wrong now when i'm saying lube in your bike wrong think about what lubricant does on the chain the whole point is your chain should be clean and the lubricant goes into the pins and rollers the stuff that actually moves around and it preserves your chain preserves the action of it reduces friction quite often i see someone hose a bike down that's obviously in might be a better state than mine currently and they just put loads of lube all over it and all you're doing is locking in all of the grit that's already in there so don't just don't cover up the stuff if you want to protect your transmission after washing your bike and it's not fully clean the best thing you can do is use some kind of water displacing spray that way you're flushing out any stuff that shouldn't be in the chain so when you come to lubricate the chain it's gonna be all right and whatever you do don't just leave your chambers like this thinking you'll keep your bike right when it's in the garage you're just gonna mess it up even more ah the next one's a classic contaminating your brakes now i've done this many times by accident i'm sure some of you have yeah i know you have in fact and there's a number of ways that this can happen the most obvious one is using the spray lube or a spray like water displacer something like that spraying it near your chain cassette and you'll either accidentally directly spray it straight into your disc rotors or just the mist is carried by the wind and it goes all over your disk rotors now although it is possible to try and use a disc brake cleaner and a few different methods to try and remove it from the discs and the pads once it soaks in those brake pads it is game over that means new disc rotors new disc brake pads expensive business and of course there's a few other ways that people don't really consider now you just wrote this can get contaminated when you're out actually just riding on the trails because naturally there's going to be oils and stuff like from the roads salts and things like that and you're going to pick that stuff up and it's going to get flicked onto your disc rotors and of course when you're cleaning your bike there's also going to be greases and stuff elsewhere on your bike so just be cautious when you're using that brush cleaning the cassette and stuff the oil that's generally on the cassette already doesn't go near your braking surfaces if in doubt you can use disc brake covers when you're cleaning your bike or you can do what i like to do in spray some disc brake cleaner or some actual bike cleaner on your disc rotors before you go and clean your actual drive side so at least that way in theory you've got a bit of a barrier on there you're going to be able to wash off separately [Music] contaminating your brakes part two now we all like to use water displacer on the bikes to like flush out water obviously and prevent corrosion happening any chain cassette stuff but it's also a good idea especially if you ride in wet conditions a lot to use some sort of polish on your bike afterwards now the theory of this is you apply obviously not on a dirty bot like mine you apply it on the down tube on the undersides of tubes places like that even on the rims if you're not using rim brakes and the theory is by having a polish on there it does help reduce the chances of mud building up so quickly kind of like a wax really so good idea however using stuff like this can absolutely kill your brakes yeah i've done this one before going to spray some spray it directly on the bike and ruined my brakes if you're gonna do it spray it onto a rag and then wipe it onto the bike let that be a lesson for you [Music] and lastly there's i guess you could call it the houdini bike wash now picture this there's a couple of situations this happens in so one of them will be if you're doing uplifts say a bike park something like that and your bike is absolutely plastered and stuff but it's still soaking wet you can go and take advantage of the jet wash there now this is ideal because you can do a really good job but you're not going to do a good job if you don't use a bike cleaner on there because what actually happens is you wash the bike down and it looks amazing and you can put it in the back of your van and you get home unload go to bed etc wake up next day and your bike's filthy again it's like it's ridiculous it looks like someone's just taking out your bike and had a day of riding and not cleaned it now this is because you have a whole layer of stuff that's just not seen when you're loosely hosing stuff down and you're left with just like a residue of dirt and silt and stuff all over the body so do yourself a favor if you're going to clean your bike out a proper bike wash at a bike park take some bike cleaning with you or try and use some of the provided ones give your bike a bit of a coating lather it up a bit and that way your bike is actually going to be clean the second reason it happens you should come in after night ride in the middle of winter always puffed himself out now the classic scenario is you go out for your night ride will be a maze have an awesome time get plastered in mud and you get home it's pitch black in the garden you're like i really should at least wash the bare minimum off the bike here um you get carried away you give it a hose down and you think it's pretty clean same thing park it up indoors put a bit of water displacer on it shut the door go to bed wake up in the morning and it still looks like this yeah the houdini bike wash is a classic if you're going to wash your bike do it properly but if you can't wash your bike the one thing that you must do is get some water displacer on your drive train on your pedals on the mechanisms if you're using clipless pedals any moving parts on a bike just get some water displays from there so you know that when you do get to clean the bike at least the fundamentals have been protected underneath of it now cleaning your bike is easy just think about what you're doing and that way your bike's going to last longer look better and thank you for it well there we go leave some comments underneath about your bike cleaning nightmares you've had or ones that you've seen other people had love to hear the stories as always give us a thumbs up we'll see you next video see you later

Channel: Global Mountain Bike Network

Views: 973,979

Keywords: Bike cleaning, Mountain bike cleaning, MTB cleaning, Bicycle tips, Bicycle repairs, MTB care, MTB maintenance, MTB cleaning tips, Muc-off cleaning, MTB tips, Bicycle care, Muc-Off, GMBN, Global Mountain Bike Network, mountain biking, mountain bike, Bicycle (Product Category), MTB, Bicycle, Downhill, XC, Cross Country, Enduro, MTB skills, bike skills, mountain bike skills, bike, bike riding, cycling, gmvn, Doddy, Andrew Dodd, sec-top-10, 4655, ᡫ, ᐶ, ߚ‎, 1o, ᢜ, ଐ, ኽ, ው, 1w, Ꮖ, ༠, ꔇ, ፕ16, έ, β, υ, η, θ, μ, σ

Id: PN1mdCQS8hw

Length: 7min 33sec (453 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 04 2022