How to Clean a Bike Properly

A clean bike is not vanity. Grit is abrasive, and the places it accumulates — the chain, the sprockets, the seals around every bearing — are the places where abrasion costs money. Washing a bike is preventative maintenance that happens to look nice.

It is also easy to do damage, and almost all of that damage comes from one thing: putting water somewhere it cannot get out of.

The pressure washer problem

The same applies, to a lesser degree, to a hose on a jet setting held close to a hub. A gentle flow is fine. A focused jet aimed at a bearing is not.

What you need

The order to work in

Washing a bike

1. 1

   Protect the brakes first

   On disc brakes, degreaser or soapy water on a rotor or pads means contaminated pads and squealing. Either remove the wheels and bag the rotors, or be scrupulous about keeping cleaner away from them — see cleaning brake rotors.

2. 2

   Rinse loose dirt off gently

   A low-pressure hose or a watering can. You are floating off grit, not blasting it. Removing grit before you touch the paint is what prevents swirl marks.

3. 3

   Wash the frame top to bottom

   Soapy water and the soft brush. Start at the bars and saddle, work down to the bottom bracket. Gravity does the rest.

4. 4

   Do the wheels

   Both sides of the rims, the spokes and the hub bodies. On rim brakes, clean the braking surface properly — it makes a real difference to braking.

5. 5

   Now the drivetrain, last

   Degreaser on the chain, cassette and chainrings, with the stiff brush. Backpedal to run the chain through. Full detail in cleaning a bike chain and cleaning a bike cassette.

6. 6

   Rinse lightly

   Enough to carry the soap and degreaser away. Keep the flow away from hubs, headset and bottom bracket.

7. 7

   Dry it

   A rag over the frame, and backpedal the chain through a dry rag until it stops coming away grey. Bouncing the bike gently sheds water from crevices.

8. 8

   Lube the chain

   One drop per roller, backpedal, wait, then wipe the outside off firmly. Washing strips lube; skipping this step means a rusty chain by tomorrow.

What to avoid

• Pressure washers. Covered above, and worth repeating.
• Household degreasers and solvents on the frame. They strip wax, can dull paint and attack decals.
• Degreaser near disc brakes. Contaminated pads usually cannot be rescued and need replacing.
• Washing in direct sunlight. Soap dries on the paint and leaves marks.
• Turning the bike upside down, if it has hydraulic disc brakes — air in the lines can migrate towards the caliper. Use a stand or lean it against a wall.
• Leaving it wet. Standing water in bolt recesses and around the seatpost is where corrosion starts.

Finishing off

A wash is the best possible moment to inspect the bike, because everything is visible for once. Look for cracks around welds and joints, cuts in tyre sidewalls, frayed cable strands, worn brake pads, and any bolt that looks like it has moved. Spin both wheels and check for rim wobble and for play in the hubs.

It is also the right moment for a proper check-over, which is set out step by step in tuning up a bike. Ten minutes of inspection on a clean bike catches most of the things that would otherwise strand you.