All-in-one bike care thread

Hello gents,

I've had a look around but I was unable to find any topic that would cover all aspects of caring for chrome, plastics, etc. so I thought it would be a good idea to get one up and running and populate it with your help and experience, especially that I personally struggle to make the right choices at the moment and I think quite a few new owners would.

The idea is to have all broken down by categories and add products as we go along and discuss.
To start off, few ideas which I hope I'll modify/add/remove based on your feedback.


Chrome (cleaner, polish, detailer)


other metail (cleaner, polish, detailer)


Plastics (cleaner, polish, detailer)


Spokes:


Rubber:


Leather (cleaner, polish)


Tires:


Get rid of them Bugs!:


Your thoughts are very much welcome.

Kind Regards,
Marcin

I most be truthful and say that I always used cheap halfords car wash cleaner to wash down and then only ever used any household polish that her indoors had available to make the bikes shiny on all metals and plastic and seat. Never done tyres at all but wd40 is great for getting any dead stuff off the bike, just put it on and let it soak in for a few minutes and it works as well as anything you could ever buy that's ment to do the job
I think one of the most imPortant things is to shaky dry the bike off to avoid water marks if you live in a hard water area, as that can be a sod to polish out those little hard water deposit rings

A mate of mine owns a chrome plating and polishing workshop and advise not to use polish on chrome as polissh is an abrasive and the chrome is only microns thick. Use the WD to remove contaminants and then use watered down window cleaner (2 parts water and 1 part window cleaner.) on the chrome and wipe it off with a soft cloth.

I usually hose the bike off & then spray the whole bike lightly with Pro-Clean Motorcycle cleaner. I then leave the pro-clean on for 5 minutes & then wipe the bike over with a cloth. I then hose off the bike & then use a leaf blower to dry the bike.
WD40 is then used to lubricate & polish the whole bike.
I have cupboard full of Micro cloths, Micro sponges, Chamois leathers & cleaning brushes. I only use a cloth or sponge once before chucking it in the wash.
I spend about an 30 minutes cleaning the bike from start to finish. However I will do a thorough strip down clean, polish & lubricate about 3 times a year that takes me about 4 hours.

Chrome (cleaner, polish, detailer) - WD40

Other metal (cleaner, polish, detailer) - WD40

Plastics (cleaner, polish, detailer) - WD40

Rubber: - WD40

Leather (cleaner, polish) - WD40

Tires: Soapy water

Wheels: - WD40

Get rid of them Bugs!: WD40 or Pro-Clean

------------------------------------------------------------
I buy both Pro-Clean & WD40 in 5.ltr containers from E-BAY

Haha Im amazed that you can use wd40 for the lot and get the shine out of it too. I thought wd is rather greasy?

I use muc off for the dirty parts, then wash with car wash and wax (triple wax or whats on offer at tesco) let it dry in the sunshine or a quick spin round the block, auto glym for dark colours on the paintwork or mr sheene, chrome polish or mr sheene on the chrome, mr muscle window cleaner on the screen, and i always have a micro fibre cloth with me at all times

As a general rule I don't clean my bikes much. I like to look at clean bikes but don't mind if mine are a bit grubby. I do spray off the salt in winter with a cold hose and spray on loads of WD. In the warmer weather I dust off and that's about it. I never wash the cars - the rain does that I think if my bikes were too clean I'd be afraid to ride them in case they got dirty again! As for what to use, there are probably a lot of perfectly good products in the £1 shop (furniture spray etc) When I look at all the cans in Halfords I thnik a lot of them are the same product with different labels. Most kitchen cupboards contain a good selection of cleaning products (Windowlene, Pledge etc) What I think - if it works for you, then that's the one. I've just had some vaulations of my bikes and none of the dealers asked to see them. They just seem to give bottom book and that's that. Fortunately for the biking world most people are not like me so I see lovely clean machines wherever I go.

Given up bothering .... I just ride the damn thng !!

MarcinG wrote:

Haha Im amazed that you can use wd40 for the lot and get the shine out of it too. I thought wd is rather greasy?

The proof is in the pudding my friend, try it and see.

A dirty bike or car reaches an equilibrium, sooner or later it just doesn't get any worse. We have a silver car that never gets washed and still looks ok, different colours seem to require more attention than others in the cleaning stakes.

Haha like in the army... "dirt over 2 inches thick falls off by itself"

MarcinG wrote:

Hello gents,

I've had a look around but I was unable to find any topic that would cover all aspects of caring for chrome, plastics, etc. so I thought it would be a good idea to get one up and running and populate it with your help and experience, especially that I personally struggle to make the right choices at the moment and I think quite a few new owners would.

The idea is to have all broken down by categories and add products as we go along and discuss.
To start off, few ideas which I hope I'll modify/add/remove based on your feedback.
Your thoughts are very much welcome.

Kind Regards,
Marcin

Chrome (cleaner, polish, detailer) - Squirty window cleaner ( cheap stuff usually, supermarket own brand )


other metail (cleaner, polish, detailer) - alloy / aluminium - Solvol Autosol or as above, depends on finish


Plastics (cleaner, polish, detailer) - Side panels, Autoglym ( every 3rd polish ) Mr Sheen ( original brand only ) for other 2 polishes

Spokes: nothing, don't clean them


Rubber: Warm soapy water, sometimes finish with tyre gloss


Leather (cleaner, polish) - Mr Sheen


Tires: See rubber


Get rid of them Bugs!: Warm soapy water on screen, or above cleaners on other surfaces