Stop KILLING Your Bike - 6 Biggest Bike Cleaning Mistakes!

stop cleaning your bike like an idiot your bike is your pride and joy but I see so many people who think they know what they're doing making mistakes when they're cleaning their bikes this is in part down to most of the advice and videos that are currently out there on the internet being complete and utter rubbish so make sure you watch this video to learn how to do things properly so that you don't damage your prized [Music] possession first mistake people make not using a stand now you won't always have one available and that's okay but if you do use one now stands you can pick them up for not much money at all if you shop around so it's well worth investing in one and they just stop you accidentally knocking your bike over when you're cleaning it which is something I see people do all the time which then causes little scrapes and damages on the stays and on the top tube especially if you're propping it against a wall and trying to clean it and then you turn on the the hose and then the pressure of the water just causes it to move slightly it also gives you much better access to both sides of the bike and underneath the next mistake I see people make is performing contact washers on dirty paint surfaces with harsh horrible brushes like this first though a disclaimer if you're the kind of person that washes your car in one of those big mechanical car washes with the swirling brushes that well causes swirl marks and scratches on the paint then um well you can continue washing your bike with a brush like this um go for it live your life however if you're a more Discerning conscientious bike owner who wants to keep your bike looking tiptop condition and look after the lacquer and the paint then continue watching so if you perform a contact wash on a dirty surface straight away such as my bike here you can see there's little bits of dirt all over the frame then what you're effectively doing is creating sandpaper even if you don't use a harsh brush if you just use like a nice soft mitt or microfiber you still got like a sandpaper effect which is just going to Mar the paint it's going to cause little scratches all over the place it's going to dull the finish and it something that actually looks a lot worse on matte frames and it's going to cut into the lacquer so what you must always do first and it's the same principle if you're washing a car properly is to perform a pre-wash this is done by rinsing the bike down with water and then applying a pre-wash uh product or some kind of detergent shampoo cleaning product to the surface to help loosen the dirt and then rinsing that off bonus optional tip for you here as well if you've got a waxed chain and you've gone to the trouble of waxing it I would recommend just taking some quick link pliers and removing the chain when you're cleaning the bike it's very quick to take off and on with quick link pliers and by doing this you won't wash the wax off the chain and it also gives you better access to the cassette jockey wheels and rest of the drivetrain so that you can clean them more effectively now if you want to top up your wax chain and perform some maintenance on that we have dedicated videos that can tell you how to do [Music] that the next one is is quite a divisive thing when it comes to bike cleaning for many people and it's to pressure wash or not to pressure wash some people swear by them some people detest them many pro mechanics use pressure washes but my take on it is that not all pressure washers are equal some Automotive ones that you get at petrol stations are super powerful and they're not designed to be used on a bike the most powerful pressure washers are designed to clean surfaces and in well the very most powerful ones are designed to cut open unexploded ordinance by bomb disposal teams now you definitely don't want to be using something like that on your bike but there are bike specific pressure washers which are lower pressure and you can also turn down the pressure that you're getting on a lot of commercial pressure washers to to a safer less powerful setting the other thing to bear in mind is the Distance by which you use it so if you have the nozzle right up against um wherever you're trying to clean there's a lot more pressure than if it's a couple of meters back so you can factor that in what I would say is that if you are going to use a pressure washer on your bike then I would just definitely avoid using High Press Jets of water on areas where there is grease and where you don't want water Ingress such as your hubs your headset the bottom bracket The Usual Suspects really so to summarize I'd say using a pressure washer is okay just don't use the most powerful settings on a pressure washer and don't aim it directly at bearings and if you're using a wash M and a proper wash process with a pre-wash and a contact wash using just a a mist and a rinse like on something like this is absolutely fine [Music] with your pre-wash performed you can now do a contact wash although you don't want to be using those nasty brushes on the frame you can use brushes on your drive train in combination with some Degreaser to get them cleaned but for your wheels Forks frame and bars and stuff that you don't want to get scratched what i' recommend you use is a nice big microfiber wash mitt like this then what we're going to do is put some uh bite wash concentrate inside a bucket also optional but pretty good use a grit guard like if you washing a car just means that any dirt and grit that does come off ends up underneath stuck under that then what we're going to do is use a hose to just Z up all of the uh all of the soap in there and get loads of nice froth and and [Music] Bubbles performing a contact wash like this with a dedicated bik cleaner helps decontaminate the paint surface and get it ready if you're going to apply any paint protection on later another mistake I see people making is just using standard washing up Liquid rather than a dedicated product or dish sub if you're American now if you're in a pinch yeah you can use this stuff and it and it is you know in many cases significantly cheaper but washing up Liquid is formulated to be pretty harsh and it is designed to remove grease and basically fat from the bottom of your frying pan consequently it's not ideal for bikes because there are several areas on my bike where I don't want it to be that harsh and I don't want it to start removing grease especially if it ingresses such as the bottom bracket the headset and also in many cases the deria as well and the hubs I want the grease to stay in there uh also washing up liquid has salt in it with which can lead to corrosion although this isn't a massive problem because especially when you're diluting it down in a big bucket that salt is in very low concentration but it is something to be aware [Music] of another common mistake people make is contaminating the braking surfaces and this is a problem on both Rim brakes and disc brakes it's something that is often made worse by by things like Aerosoles and aerosol degreases that sort of stuff if people tend to spray these around like the linkx Africa and then you invariably get you that mist overspray which ends up on you breaking surfaces now at best this is going to cause contamination and probably really loud and annoying brakes at worst it's going to mean that next time you ride and you slam on your brakes nothing happens what's much better is a a spray on degreasing product such as this it's liquid um it's much easier to control it and then you know not get that overspray also a bit nicer for the environment if you do get some contamination on your braking surfaces though uh don't worry you just use an appropriate product on there such as well this is a this works as a brake cleaner too it won't make them noisy spray that on there and then just simply wipe it off with a clean [Music] microfiber and the last mistake I'm going to tell you about is not drying your bike properly or leaving it somewhere damp after you've cleaned it this isn't really a problem if you live somewhere like Arizona but if you live somewhere like England it's a much bigger issue so by not properly drying your bike you're going to rapidly encourage uh corrosion and rust to form which will just eat your bottom bracket your bearings in your headset bearings in your wheels and cause rust form on your chain as well the solutions for the this uh well the best one is to use an air compressor to dry your bike this is what Pro mechanics use they're incredibly effective really good um at drying out components and getting into all the nooks and crannies but I appreciate not many people own an air compressor if you so don't worry if you don't um the next best thing I I found which I think is a great hack is to use a dehumidifier is again very good at permeating all the cracks and just getting all that moisture out and drying something out um but again not everyone own a dehumidifier although if you live in a an aging damp property like a Victorian house in England then you probably should uh failing those two things just a good old-fashioned uh microfiber drying towel all over the frame and drying it as best you can and just not leaving it somewhere damp like you know your old shed or a Cellar or your your garage or whatever where it's going to encourage that rust so I hope you found these tips useful and doing so you can better look after your bike um and this is by no means an exhaustive list there are lots more things that you could include in here but I don't want to make the video too long so let us know your suggestions of things and hacks that you do when cleaning your bike to look after it properly down in the comments section below if you found this video useful give it a thumbs up if you've got a mate who just takes terrible care of their bike but has a really nice bike share this video with them name them and shame them right I'll see you in the next one bye

Channel: GCN Tech

Views: 236,982

Keywords: bike cleaning, bike cleaning mistakes, how to clean a bike, how to clean bike, clean bike, bike clean, bike cleaning tips, cycling mistakes, mistakes, bike stand, pressure washer, hose, 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, 5236, Ѯ, ҩ, Ѵ, ӕ, Ѫ, sca15, ិ, ꤬, c1, ꗶ, n1, ፕ18, ଙ, ସ, 𑣬‎, f3, ሙ, ළ, ዮ

Id: zz4p56bMn7g

Length: 10min 30sec (630 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 06 2023