Easy & Effective On-The-Bike Chain Cleaning!

welcome to maintenance Monday here on gcn Tech in this video I'm going to explain how to give your chain a deep clean without the need to remove it off your bike this is going to mean that your chain and the rest of your drivetrain components are going to last a little bit longer before they need replace it this process needs to be done outside because we're going to be using running water in the form of our hose pipe and it's going to apply to people using traditional oil-based lubricants rather than wax based products now the method which I'm going to show you is what I have found to be the easiest and most effective way to clean your chain without removing it from your bike in all of my 20 years worth of experience there are lots of ways of going about it but this one I feel is the simplest the things that you are going to need to do this are some running water in the form of a hose pipe a bucket a clean cloth your Degreaser now there are loads of ones to choose from these are the options I've got here with me today you're also going to need a couple of brushes to agitate the Degreaser into your chain and all the other components first thing you need to do is carefully lean your bike up against the wall or fence that you're prepared to get wet or if you have a work stand to hand well put your bike in the work stand then you want to shift into the large chainring at the front and the middle of the cassette at the back obviously on this bike as one bar doesn't have a large chainring but by doing this it gives you a nice straight chain line it means when you back pedal to work the Degreaser into everything you're unlikely to have the chain ship off of the cassette and run into some confusion with all the gears I don't know if you can see but the chain on this bike is already relatively clean and would you believe it we genuinely don't have many bikes flying around here at gcn which have got absolutely filthy dirty chains so you're gonna have to bear with me on this and just accept the fact that this is the process that you would go through should your chain be particularly grubby we're at the stage now where we're ready to apply the Degreaser onto the chain it really is just a simple case of back pain in the bike and spraying it onto the chain As you move it all the way around it's best to spray the Degreaser directly onto the chain on this lower run rather than spraying it onto all of the different components and getting it directly into the areas where any of the bearings are easiest way to get a Degreaser onto the cassette into the pulley Wheels is just to spray it onto a stiff brush which you've got and that way so you can then work it directly into all of the different areas that you need to get to if it's particularly grubby spray a bit more Degreaser on and work it all the way around whilst back pedaling but don't be lazy and do make sure you get into all those little gaps which are awkward to get to next we have to wait usually just a few minutes to let the Degreaser do its thing now it depends on what Degreaser you've used you can just look on the back of the bottle and you'll have some Gardens as to how long to leave it but it's normally a few minutes at this point we can carry on agitating the Degreaser if we like and using our brush to get into all of the little gaps and the easiest thing to do as I just said is just keep back pedaling whilst holding the brush on the chain and the areas that you want to clean oh yeah don't forget to scrub right behind the chainring and this little Gap in the mech here that's where a brush like this comes in really handy now the degreasers have a few minutes to work its magic and get rid of a lot of that Grime we can take our hose pipe and start to wash out all of the Degreaser and get it off all of the components of our bike we don't use high pressure this is barely in any difference to what you get out of a watering can so what we're going to do is have it over the cassette back pedal at the same time and clear and flush out everything with clean water so we can assess what the Chain's like and then if we need to repeat the process again if you're someone that maintains your bike regularly chances are you'll find that that one single process and cleaning application is going to be enough to have left you with a clean and shiny chain something similar to what I've got here but if however you're like the majority of people and put off maintenance jobs on your bike then chances are you're going to have to just repeat this process once or twice more to really get all of that Grime out from the inside areas of the chain because that's the real crucial part whilst your chain sometimes can look clean on the outside it's the bit on the inside that you want to make sure is super clean easiest way of telling if you've got the chain in the clean enough sort of region is to be able to wipe your fingers over the section of it and come away without any sort of dirt and grime left on your fingers if you do need to repeat the process it's really simple just spray Degreaser on give it a few minutes scrub and agitate it before washing it all thoroughly off with clean flow water now if you're going to wash the rest of your bike that is the time you go ahead and do it and as a general rule of thumb you'll always do the drivetrain first and the rest of the components afterwards oh I haven't actually used the bucket yet which some people be like what's he need the bucket for well if your chain is particularly grimy and grubby um it's quite helpful to fill your bucket up with water and you can add a bit of Degreaser into that and then just keep dunking your your brushes into there rather than keep rubbing all the dirt around on your chain um yeah so at this stage all we're going to actually need to do is take a clean cloth and thoroughly dry all of the chain and the drivetrain components off because we've just removed all of the oils and lubricants on them it if we left it it would rust up super super quick easy process how to dry your chain it's very similar to what we've done to clean it hold the cloth on the bottom run of the chain grip it firmly and then back pedal so dry the chain off this also serves as a really good purpose to see whether you've done a good job of cleaning the chain because if your cloth is starting to show loads of real black marks on it well that means you really haven't got most of the dirt out so you should have another go at degreasing it and clean it thoroughly with a suitably clean and dry chain next thing to do is take a chain lube of your choice such as this and apply one drop per roller for the entire way around the chain you can then back pedal to work the chain loop in between all the links the pins and the rollers you need to do this for 13.27 seconds no I'm just kidding and backped a few times and it'll work it all in if you feel like there's some excess Lube on external parts of the chain that's really not going to help achieve anything better other than attracting dirt to change so yeah clean cloth and gently wipe off any of the excess on the external surfaces and that is really it away you go you're ready to go for more fun cycling miles a quick tidy up of the area and before you know it you'll have this process dialed in and it'll be part of your usual bike cleaning process without the need to even think about it I hope you've enjoyed this maintenance video and found it helpful to give you a quick and easy process to clean your chain if there's any other maintenance videos you'd like to see let us know in the comments section down below and um well I'll try and make those videos for you see you later

Channel: GCN Tech

Views: 549,062

Keywords: bicycle chain, bike chain, clean bike chain, how to clean a bike chain, bike chain cleaning, chain cleaning, clean chain, gcn chain, deep clean, chain clean, clean bicycle chain, GCN Tech, GCNTech, GCN, GCN Cycling, Bike Tech, Cycling Tech, Cycling, Pro Cycling, Road Cycling, bike tech, cycling tech, cycling, tech, road, bike, road bike, bicycle, maintenance, how to, bike maintenance, bike repair, monday maintenance, Ѡ, 5082, Ѯ, ҩ, ѷ, Ҁ, Ѿ, ӓ, ҁ, Ѧ, gc21s, r1, ꗶ, ᠫ, n1, ፕ16, ଙ, 𑣬‎, f3, ළ, ꘎

Id: ccoybv2Q6sk

Length: 7min 20sec (440 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 05 2023