(Not) Squeaky Clean

   A quick Tour de France note - my current peloton favorite, Alejandro Valverde, was finally able to claim a stage win yesterday. During an incredibly difficult 17^th stage of the Tour through the Pyrenees Mountains, he was able to get into a long break and hold off the hard-charging teammates Chris Froome and Bradley Wiggins, who will most likely claim this year’s yellow jersey. Valverde and his Movistar team have had terrible luck, with nearly every rider on their nine man team hitting the pavement at some time during the Tour, and many of them leaving with serious injury. When asked about the crashes and how it affected his chances to challenge for a podium spot, I thought Valverde (pictured below) was classy with his answer by not rehashing some of his previous complaints about the reckless cycling in the pack. He simply explained that the pounding his team took would make it hard to fight against the quality of opponents in the race and that at this point, he would just like to focus on the success of the day.

   I’d like to offer some advice about cleaning a bicycle, after hearing some disturbing stories from some customers, friends and family (you know who you are). I admit that I am more finicky than most and tend to wipe down most traces of dirt and sweat from my bike daily, or at least every few days, if I’m too exhausted from the ride I’ve just finished, but most cyclists recognize the eventual need to clean their ride, not only to make it look better, but also to make it operate more efficiently.

   I would first like to point out that, although modern bicycles have frames of carbon fiber and exotic materials, the machines are still primarily made up of moving metal parts, and introducing water to them is not the best idea. Even if you haven’t experienced a chain completely seized up with rust, there are many other important parts of a bicycle that will eventually become victim to oxidation, such as the headset and bottom bracket. The tiny metal ball bearings involved need to be clean and well lubricated in order to move freely and keep your bike operating smoothly.

   If you have a bicycle that was manufactured in the past 10-15 years, you may be fortunate to have sealed bearings that keep out moisture very well, but that doesn’t mean you should take a power washer to the bike! As a matter of fact, spraying a garden hose to your bicycle is really just a bit lazy, when taking the time to wipe it down with a damp cloth or two is really all you need.  What I like to do (I learned this technique in an old Paris-Roubaix cycling video) is first go over the bicycle with a wide soft bristle paint brush, dusting off the frame and wheels. A smaller tip brush is good for some of the harder to reach spots, particularly around the bottom bracket, where the chainring/crank assembly and derailleur are in the way.

   I then use a damp cloth, or perhaps one with a spray of degreaser (Simple Green is my favorite) for stubborn spots, like bug bodies or asphalt splash under the down tube. Some compulsive folks actually wax and buff their frames, but I’ve never done this, and I’ve had frames for twenty years which had a finish looking close to factory new! Maybe if you live in extreme environments, waxing your frame would be something to consider, but I’m not sure what the average cyclists would get out of this but a lot of aggravation.

   Perhaps most important part of your bicycle cleaning would be the chain and drive. Put a little degreaser on a rag and gently pinch the pulleys on the rear derailleur as you SLOWLY pedal the bike. The idea here is to remove accumulated gunk from the pulley without mangling your fingers or getting the loose end of the rag caught in the chain and pulleys or rear cogs. Similarly, wipe down the chainrings, moving the chain from ring to ring as you clean them. As an alternative, you could spray on some degreaser and scrub the pulleys and rings with an old toothbrush. I recommend holding a rag in your free hand, behind the pulleys and rings as you spray and scrub to prevent making a greasy mess everywhere.

   If you need to clean out the rear cassette, you may want to remove the wheel, again to prevent making a mess over any part of the bike you may have cleaned previously. Learning to remove the cassette from the wheel for cleaning is really not that difficult, but not absolutely necessary. Park Tool makes a great combination stiff brush with a serrated hook (pictured below left) for getting debris out from between the cogs, but any long bristled brush and a long, thin pick-type tool will work.

   Although I have one of those fancy clip-on chain cleaning tools (pictured above right), I have yet to try it - I’m not really sure why, but perhaps I just find the technique I’ve used in the past so simple. Again, holding a rag behind my working area to prevent splattering everywhere, I spray degreaser on a length across the top of the chain and scrub the surfaces to loosen the grime. Holding the crank with my opposite hand to create tension on the chain, I then pull backward with the chain wrapped inside the rag to wipe everything clean. Those of you who have neglected this chore for a while may have to let things soak a bit or go over the area more than once. You will have to rotate the pedals to expose different dirty sections of chain to complete the job. When finished, be sure to apply a light bicycle chain oil (a small drop on each link will do) to help protect the chain by keeping out moisture and to allow the links to move freely and operate quietly.

   As a final note, if you ride in the rain fairly frequently and don’t have a bicycle with a sealed bottom bracket, it is extremely important to either have your bike professionally maintained or learn to do so yourself. Water sprays up from your back tire and works down the seat tube into the bottom bracket. I found out the results when I took apart my brother’s bicycle during my mechanics class and found the bearings inside to be bone dry – NOT the smoothest of operating conditions for any bike, the bracket desperately needed to be repacked with grease. I was lucky to have caught it relatively early and didn’t have to replace a bunch of bearings with flat spots or worse, a couple of grooved bearing cups($$)!