Bike Wash Video

Above: VAR's excellent chain keeper

Our friend "Chairman Bill" McGann of BikeRaceInfo asked Larry to make a bike washing video for him. You can see it HERE.

Since the late '80's when power-washer maker KARCHER* supplied their units to the pro teams at LeTour, all the videos you see on this subject show bikes being blasted clean with high-pressure soap and water. While this is fast and efficient, it's NOT good for your bike, especially if you don't have a dedicated mechanic and truck full of spare parts to replace those damaged by the entrance of water into critical bearings.

Larry's demonstration in the video is of the old, tried-and-true method used for decades before pressure washers became cheap, popular and portable. For regular care of your bicycles, this method is much, much kinder and really doesn't take that much longer. Larry routinely cleans the CycleItalia rental fleet using this same method and can wash and service 10 bicycles in a couple of hours all by himself. Many of these rental bikes were put into service back in 2005 and have since been washed this way dozens of times. They still look and ride like new**.

As you'll see in this video, once you have everything set up, the actual cleaning process takes barely 10 minutes, meaning you can set up, wash and then put everything away in barely 30 minutes. There's nothing like working on a clean bike, so even if you don't do much of your own work, the hard-working mechanic at your local bike shop will appreciate your efforts.

Happy Washing!

*Update -many years later claims were made that using household dish soap to wash bikes (despite being used since...forever) ruined your bike. These folks failed to mention the pressure washers used for this purpose by pro teams and increasingly by "Joe Crankarm" to wash his own bike, as if he had to wash a couple dozen of 'em each day instead of just one or two.

Reminds Zio Lorenzo of the fans of those no-carbohydrate diets. "Hmm..how long have men been making and eating bread and pasta? Centuries? How long have Americans been fat? 50 years or so? Must be the bread and pasta then, right?"

Bikes are being ruined by using household dish soap, used since probably the invention of household dish soap? But it seems they've only been ruined since the widespread use of pressure-washers. "Nah, that can't have anything to do with it, must be the dish soap." say those who market $30 bottles of special bike-washing soap.

**One of these bikes is still in-use by Zio Lorenzo in 2024..complete with the original cables and BB. Works just like-new!