Cleaning your bike with Zero Water

Feeling guilty for wasting large amounts of water washing your bike regularly? Well I have the perfect solution…

Now that Australia is long into an endless drought, the days of washing & cleaning your bikes with the so thought of an unlimited supply of water out your garden hose is far but history. But how are we meant to clean our bikes now? It was something I had to research into but without little results. I hate having dirty bikes as they look terrible & run horrible so I had to come up with something quick smart. It still had me puzzled with how I was still going to clean my bikes until I came across something that was under my nose the entire time.

Introducing Armor All’s very own Cleaning and Protectant Wipes. Amour All have been around for a long time who specialize in car care products. So after finding these in the shed I thought why not give them a shot cleaning my bikes just to see how they went. They clean the interior of cars great so I was keen to see just how they’d go on a bike. I was very surprised with the end result.

Here’s a nice dusty bike after an Enduro on the weekend.

 
First of all when I use the Cleaning wipes, you can use the wipes for basically the entire bike but don’t be fooled. I cant hesitate enough that you should not get any of the soapy residue on any of the ‘contact’ parts of your bike i.e. grips, levers, shifters, seats, pedals & especially rotors. The reason being is the soap & others in the wipes which makes the shine effect after wiping an object leaves it extremely slippery so the last thing you want to do is to get it on one of those parts stated then go out and injure yourself. There’s no real technique for cleaning your bike, you’ll find a style yourself when using them.

So now I have cleaned half the bike & as you can tell it is doing the job quite well.

Once I have completely cleaned the bike, I am personally really picky with the way I present my bikes and at this stage it is looking quite good but its still missing that “new” look. Problem solved, grab out a Protectant wipe and following the same principles as when I cleaned the bike [not wiping over rotors, grips etc.] I can now wipe the entire bike down. The wipe however leaves a wet soapy effect on the frame so quickly before the soap dries I grab a rag I run over the entire frame which removes the excess soap. Half an hour after having a dirty & dusty bike it now looks basically brand new. Obviously other parts such as rotors or the drivetrain will need a proper detailed clean but these wipes are a great quick way to make that bike of yours looks newer than ever or great for detail cleaning.

 
I’ve now been using these for quite a while and they really are such a simple yet effective way to clean your bike. I regularly clean my bikes after just about every ride so these wipes have gone through their paces. It wouldn’t be odd for me to clean a few of my bikes up to four times a week so you could imagine just how much water I have saved from using them. On this particular clean I used about five cleaning wipes and around 3 or so Protectant wipes but it really depends on how dirty your bike is. These really are such an easy way to clean your bikes without using any water at all.

You can buy these basically anywhere from the supermarket to a Petrol Station or any other car outlets. Each case comes with 25 wipes & cost from around $8AUD to $10AUD for each Cleaning & Protectant wipes.