Yes, yes, and yes. It is protective, stays cleaner longer, etc.
I only really clean my bikes when they have caked on mud, but then randomly I’ll give them a decent cleaning and take some pictures or something.
i wax all of my bikes once a year… pro-tip: one coat, more than that and you’re asking for trouble.
i keep the drive trains pretty clean, i would say each bike about once every 4-6 weeks x 3 bikes breaks down to every week or two. if that makes sense.
Winter/rain bike gets a thorough cleaning every spring.
CX bike gets a good wipe-down every Monday (or Tuesday) during race season.
Road bike and Tarck bike get occasional wipe-downs.
Tallbike never gets dirty as it’s strictly for nice weather.
Aside from maintenance and brake surfaces/pads, this is how often I clean my stuff.
I clean parts whenever I take them on or off of a bike and since I am perpetually swapping parts, everything is usually pretty clean. Never really clean my cassettes though.
Glad to know I’m not the only bikeslob around. I like the way my mountain bike looks covered in dried mud and vegetation with a shiny, sonic-cleaned chain glistenin’
Washing my bike is like meditation for me. I do it when I’m feeling down or when I’m bored on a day off. Sometimes I might go for months without doing it. Other times I’ll do it once a week. Each session usually involves complete disasembly and regreasing and takes a few hours.
Its been needing to happen for a while but my days off have recently been filled with more important stuff.
maybe i should wax the Look.
serious about my look, ya know?
rarely clean bikes
Nice road bike: Keep obsessively clean.
Jackass road bike: Clean & lube drivetrain once every couple weeks, maybe wipe mud off DT and stays.
Fixed gear conversion: Took me 3 weeks to get around to cleaning bird poop off it.
I clean my “nice” bikes whenever something happens to them (rain, bird crap, etc). My crap bike gets the chain cleaned when it sounds really gritty and I usually spend some time getting any particularly bad grime off of it then.
So probably average of 1-2 months. Big overhaul happens about once a year.
Proper cleaning, about once a year… I clean my rims when the braking gets iffy or when I get a flat, but I rarely bother with cleaning the frame.
Annual overhaul. Wipe it down when I see shit getting dirty. So usually once a month. The Surly I don’t mind looking dirty, but my old roadie is a nice pearly white and dirt really looks bad on it.
FTFM
I recently stopped using the rear brake for three weeks cos it had a chunk of metal in the pad. When I got around to it, it took all of 1minute to complete the task. I felt pretty ashamed, but whatevs.
I like to think I do things when they’re necessary though. Chain’s always lubed, tires at good pressure etc, so I feel like I do enough already.
[EDIT] Here’s some pictures of some of the bird poop on the bike I’m riding today. There was a couple more bits on the saddle too, but I’ve mostly worn them off with my ass.
i only wipe dirt off my bike when Im gonna overhaul a loose ball, or im fixing some thing
Full pics of that bike wotan?
I wiped my bike down yesterday, but only cause i brought it into my room to install fenders. if i had the fenders in the first place i wouldn’t need the wipedown.
[quote=Dr. Bold]Full pics of that bike wotan?
[/quote]
It looks so small in those pictures. I really gotta swap it one day for something with a longer seat tube.
Hot shit. Replace those aero levers atmo.