Clean Your Bike!
Anyone that owns a bike should learn the most basic routine steps towards maintaining it — cleaning and greasing. If you do these two things every so often, you’ll be amazed at how well your bike runs without any additional maintainence. This is by no means all-inclusive. I’m just going to show you some of the quickest most basic things you can do to keep your bike clean and running smooth. I’m using my Surly Steamroller, a single speed fixed gear bike. This will make the cleaning process a lot simpler, since I don’t have to worry about cleaning cassettes, deraillers, or anything else related to shifting or braking. Note: This article can also be considered an argument for the virtues of owning a fixed gear bike — maintenance is minimal, as I will demonstrate.
Here it is, my Surly. This is my most favorite bike that I have ever owned or ridden. It’s the most fun, dangerous, and versatile bike that I’ve ever come into contact with.
Alright, flip it over.
Shown here: Pedro’s Ice Wax chain lube, Tri-flow, Pedro’s Bio Degreaser, Phil Wood’s Waterproof Grease, and some heavy duty disposable shop towels.
You’ll really only need the degreaser for cleaning, and then the chain lube for lubing your chain, and an old shirt or rag if you don’t have shop towels. The Tri-flow and Phil’s Grease are really for more thorough cleanings.
Spray some degreaser onto a shop towel.
Just wipe everything down, start with your frame, it’s probably got dried mud on it if you’ve been riding it. It’s often easier to clean a bike after the mud has dried, then it just flakes off pretty easily. If you’ve been riding in an area that gets snow, please clean your bike! You might not realize it, but all that salt they lay on the road sticks to your bike and makes your components rust more quickly.
I like to use degreaser to wipe my frame down because it’s common for grease to build up on the frame, I’m not sure why. Maybe the grease has just travelled there from other areas on the bike.
I like to try and keep my spokes healthy and shiny. It’s always a bummer finding an old bike that’s in good shape, but the spokes are dry and brittle. If you get your spokes too clean, sometimes you’ll hear a little squeaking noise coming from them as you ride. Sometimes as you put pressure and weight on your bike, the contact points between the various spokes are rubbing together. You can fix this with a tiny drop of Tri-Flow at those contact points.
Here’s an important step that will make your bike ride smoothly, clean all the crud off the teeth on your chain ring. Use more degreaser to break it up if you need to. Some people use toothbrushes, you probably won’t need to if you’re cleaning your bike often enough though.
Sometimes I grab the teeth on either side and clean it by wiping outward.
Sometimes I sort of “floss” the chain ring’s teeth.
Wow, cleaning a fixed gear takes like 5 minutes! Isn’t that great? Now we just need to put some fresh lube on the chain. Turn your cranks with one hand, and with the other apply the lube. Just hold the lube in one fixed spot, I hold it over the cog in the back, and let it drip steadily onto the chain until you’ve made a full rotation and covered the entire length.
This is an important step, take a clean shop towel and wipe off the excess lube. If you fail to do this, all the extra lube will collect dirt and other gross stuff off the road and your bike will get dirtier and run rougher faster. Just grab the chain with your towel and turn the crank with the other hand. You’ll see that the shop towel has collected some black grease. You can rinse and repeat the last two steps (lubing and wiping) if you want to clean your chain off a bit more. But, it’s perfectly ok if the stuff you wipe off your chain is dark.
There it is! All sparkly!
January 26th, 2006 at 10:44 am
Cool. Now I just need a bike!
February 13th, 2006 at 1:34 am
hey! just a friendly reminder. most LBSes and various bike nerds suggest waiting 5 minutes before you wipe the lube off yer chain. this allows for the lube to soak into the pins and crevices that it needs to… just sayin’!
you wanna come over and clean my bike for me?
February 13th, 2006 at 3:16 pm
Awesome, I didn’t know that. Thanks Bridge! And yes, I will clean your bike for beer.
February 18th, 2006 at 6:46 pm
Wow, I suddenly got a strong desire for clening my bike… Strange… :P
February 23rd, 2006 at 9:18 pm
If you need an old bike, check out Lugged Frame. Make sure to see the photos!
June 17th, 2006 at 11:59 pm
If you get a second-hand bike, there’s an extra step you might need on your first cleaning. A lot of folks think that the gear-and-chain system needs oil or grease, which apparantly is a bad thing. I got a mountain bike, and the first thing we had to do was apply degreaser to the chain and rims — it was so bad, the brakes were unusable.
September 6th, 2006 at 9:30 am
Hey guys,
Just wanted to remind all of you fixed gear riders, when wiping down the chain and getting fingers and other digits in the cog and chainring and such…be careful. Remember, if the rear wheel is turning, so are the cogs, and a finger won’t stop it. For proof, check out Sheldon Brown’s warning here: http://www.sheldonbrown.com/fixed.html Photos are super gross…be warned…
Otherwise, thanks for the great article!
January 30th, 2007 at 5:22 pm
another great tip for cleaning a chain when it REALLY needs to be cleaned…
take the chain off completely and drop it into a 2 liter soda bottle with your favorite chain cleaner. Close and stir up a lil’ to make sure its all covered. Then let it sit a lil’ while, maybe have a beer, then go back, take it out and wipe it down a little as to not “over lube” as our friend noted above. Then reinstall. Viola! Clean as a whistle.
January 30th, 2007 at 6:32 pm
@JAWN - Yes! Good one!! I spray a little BioDegreaser and then water it down in a 20 oz. plastic soda bottle, works really well!
February 25th, 2007 at 9:26 pm
ok, ive somehow come across this page like 10 times in the last month, and i cant stand it anymore.
first of all, why would you flip the bike over, all it does is ruin your saddle and tape/grips. anything that can be done on a bike can be done right side up, either clamp it in a stand or make your own, or just take a loop of rope and put it around the nose of the saddle and one of the fencepieces in the background.
second, the reason why your getting grease all over your frame is probably because most companies put a light lubricant in their degreasers, try using soapy water.
cleaning your chainring is important, but if you use degreaser, YOU NEED TO WASH IT OFF! (i personally use clean streak or mineral spirits because it works well and evaporates by itself.)
you also need to clean your cog as well.
now comes the big one, you NEED TO CLEAN THE CHAIN! wether it be by the inefficient useless hand crank abominations or just taking it off, soaking it in degreaser and washing it off with hot soapy water.
lubing a dirty chain is borderline criminal.
also when lubing you should do it on the inner section i.e. the opposite of your photo. its also more effective if you just put one drop on each roller. i personally dont wipe mine down if im using dry lube, but thats a personal thing.
i really didnt mean this to be mean or belittleing (not sure if it came of this way, i think my downstairs neighbors booty call music is getting to me)
its just gonna make your drivetrain last a hell of a lot longer.
February 26th, 2007 at 1:29 am
Haha, whoops! Well, sorry if I gave anyone crappy advice. This way has been working fine for me, but maybe I’ll try the mineral spirits and other stuff. My grips and seat never get messed up when they flipped over, but maybe some would? I just brush the dirt off. Haha, maybe in my efforts to clean my bikes I’m crudding them up!
March 21st, 2007 at 12:13 pm
good stuff!
March 21st, 2007 at 12:15 pm
another thing, everyone try to keep your spokes clean! it realy is worth doing. i have a giant rock mtb and never cleaned the spokes. the whole bike is in a great condition and i olny had it for a year. then the spokes got dull and lost their shine.
JUST REMINDEN Y’ALL!!! :-) XD
April 30th, 2007 at 1:55 pm
hey i got an old bike and im puttin the parts on another bike but my friend and i cant get the chain off we almost broke the bike (old crappy kid bike) how do ya get it off ? . ps not mine i got sweet TREK 3700 !
May 1st, 2007 at 10:37 am
Hmmm, sounds fishy. I would recommend taking it into a bike shop and having them help you — especially if you almost broke the bike.
There are different types/sizes of chains, the chain from the kid bike might not be the right type/size for the other bike you’re trying to put it on anyway.
June 5th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
i have a BSA equipe, bought it as a pile of rust and sanded the frame down and sprayed it, it came with old sized wheels but i got some 700’s for it, i have a 6 speed cog on the back and currently runnding single speed freewheel, does anyone know how i change this model to fixed wheel?
June 5th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
Hey Alex, Sheldon Brown’s info on fixed gear conversions is a great starting place.