Road bike cleaning/maintenance

austinbyrne21

Good morning all,

Anyone know of any good websites that go through cleaning all parts of a road bike as well as the chain?

Also, anyone own or has any opinion on "Road Bike Maintenance" by Guy Andrews?

Any insight will be gratefully received...

CheGuedara

I have that book by Guy Andrews - have found it very good, well illustrated, step by step, hard to go wrong if you follow it. Like the fact that it's ring bound and can be opened flat beside whatever you're working on too - a nice, simple touch.

There'll be someone on shortly to recommend one of Leonard Zinn's art of bike maintenance books just as highly though

Lumen

The Art of the Bike Wash

Personally, I get by with a narrow nylon brush (for baby bottles), a Park Cyclone Chain Scrubber (with appropriate degreaser), a chamois, a bucket of hot water with car shampoo (not washing up liquid - too salty) and a low pressure garden hose.

mike12

Hi,
I got the chain clearner from lidil las week and it worked great, what would you use to clean the chain next time as there was only enough cleaning liquid for one go.
Mike

austinbyrne21

Cheers for the advice lads. Yea, I reckon I'll get that Guy Andrews book alright - seen it in Waterstones yesterday, should've picked it up then.

I'll get one of them chain-cleaners as well, reckon wiggle or one of them have sufficient ones, yea?

Just another little thing... How often should I be cleaning the chain? Seems a bit of messy work to be doing after every spin.

Lumen

austinbyrne21 wrote: »

Just another little thing... How often should I be cleaning the chain? Seems a bit of messy work to be doing after every spin.

Depends on weather and distance. If you wipe down the chain after every wet ride you shouldn't need to do it more than once every couple of weeks.

ob

Another good one:
http://worldwidecyclesblog.com/2007/06/11/tip-of-the-week-bike-washing/

danburke

petrol?

Raam

Lumen wrote: »

Depends on weather and distance. If you wipe down the chain after every wet ride you shouldn't need to do it more than once every couple of weeks.

What Lumen is saying is: if you clean it after every ride, you will only need to clean it once every fortnight.

Lumen

danburke wrote: »

petrol?

Poisonous, dangerous, unnecessary.

ednwireland

danburke wrote: »

petrol?

and dont get it anywhere near your carbon

i just use muc off degreaser in a park tool chain cleaner about once a week, couldnt face my bice shiny Cf bike being dirty when i go out

(now the commuter takes a bit more cleaning)