30 Minute Bike Wash | How To Clean & Degrease Your Bike
Why Bicycles Stack Exchange recommends it
Bicycles Stack Exchange answerers point people to it as a clear, complete walkthrough of washing a bike and degreasing and relubing the drivetrain.
Recommended by 2 people across 3 different months, 2016 to 2019.
What it is
A Global Cycling Network tutorial in which presenter Simon Richardson puts a bike on a stand and does a full wash, including degreasing the drivetrain, in about 30 minutes. It walks through cleaning every part of the bike until it looks close to new.
What people said
Recommends paparazzo · 2016-02 · Bicycles Stack Exchange · on “Bike Washing Steps to know”
For a full cleaning [this video] Something I got from the video is if you use a de-greaser then you need to use soap to remove the de-greaser before lubing or it will just break down the lube
Recommends Argenti Apparatus · 2019-04 · Bicycles Stack Exchange · on “Upgrading From a 9 Speed Sora Derailleur?”
As a sort of addendum to Nathan Knutson's answer, focusing on things to do before replacing the derailleur. Make sure wheel is fully in the dropouts and parallel to the frame. Properly and clean the drivetrain with a degreaser and apply a bike chain specific lubricant, not penetrating oil such as WD-40, GT85 etc. There are many videos [this video] that show how to do this. Check hanger alignment. From the photo it looks pretty good (cage should be parallel to the chainrings). It might be worth getting a bike store to check it with a hanger realignment tool. Replace cables and housings. Stretchy cables and sticky housings can cause the derailleur to not index properly. Run through a systematic der
Recommends Argenti Apparatus · 2019-05 · Bicycles Stack Exchange · on “Bike making random noises after being lubricated”
First, what you have is a bike with derailleur gears. The derailleur itself is the mechanism that moves the chain onto one of several sprockets mounted on the rear wheel hub to achieve different gear ratios. The sprockets can be referred to as a sprocket cluster . Many people also call it a cassette (although that properly refers to sprockets mounted in a particular way). The sprockets themselves do not need lubricating, only the chain does. Excessive lubrication can be dangerous if oil gets on the tires, braking surfaces on the rims (or discs on new bikes) or brake pads. It also tends to make a nasty mess, getting on the frame, wheels, legs and clothing. What I would do is give the bike a g
Cites cdahms · 2016-11 · Bicycles Stack Exchange · on “after heavy rain or washing, which parts of the bike to re-lube and with what?”
Good afternoon, I'm a relatively new cyclist and I've been caught out in a heavy rain a few times recently. After this, or if I was to wash my bike thoroughly, I'm not sure which parts of the bike to re-lube and what lube to use. Obviously I should clean and re-lube the chain, but what about everything else? For example in this video: at 7:30 the presenter, after re-lubing the chain, shoots the front and rear derailleurs and adjacent parts with WD-40. This seems backward to me, being that WD-40 is also a solvent I would have figured to clean the chain first, then shoot the front and rear derailleurs and adjacent parts with WD-40, then re-lube the chain with chain lube. I've checked various o
Cites Argenti Apparatus · 2018-02 · Bicycles Stack Exchange · on “How to secure a fully carbon (aero) bike when washing/repairing on a stand?”
The seatpost is a fairly sturdy carbon tube, as it has to withstand the mass of the rider on one and of it and some significant bending forces. Also, the seatpost has to be clamped by the frame, so it can take some clamping force. For cleaning, you should not have to clamp the seatpost particularly hard, just enough to support the bike. I note that Simon Richardson of GCN clamps a Ridley bike on its carbon seatpost in this video [this video] .