Cleaning of chain| Know how to clean your bike chain|

Of all the parts of your bike that need cleaning, your chain is perhaps the most important one. A clean chain is along-lasting chain, and that also has a positive effect on the lifespan of your whole bicycle. So it is a definite money-saving tip. There is a specific technique to effective chain cleaning, though. So, let’s roll up your sleeves and start.

 The first point to mention is that to get anywhere here, you're going to need a specific product to degrease your chain. I'm sure you'll all be all too familiar with that feeling of trying to get oil off your hands. Soap and hard water don't do the job. Maybe washing-up liquid might go a little bit better, but, essentially, you're stuck with it. Well, exactly the same is true for cleaning your chain.

 Go near it with cold water and a sponge, and you will not get anywhere, so what you need is a specific degreaser. Now, various chemicals that you have lying around at home might do the job, to some extent. So, something like white spirit, or paraffin, or diesel will all get your chain clean, but they're pretty nasty and they're also not environmentally friendly, and I think we can do better than that. Now, if I'm not doing a super quick clean, then I'll always bring out the proper degreaser. All degreaser can be pretty nasty stuff, so it is definitely a good idea to use gloves and then be careful that you don't get any in your eyes.

Then it's just a case of decanting a small amount into a suitable container. A sawn-off water bottle is quite a good use for old ones. And then I simply paint it on with a brush. And then give the chain a back pedal, and then we just leave it sit for a couple minutes. Now, this next bit is a cool little hack. So, you see, if we clean the chain now just with a sponge and hot water, it's going to look nice and clean. But if we then look closely, we'll see that there's quite a lot of gunk still between the plates of the chain, and it's this gunk that's actually going to be wearing away at our bike. So, for that you are going to need two nail brushes.

Now, they're both available from pharmacies or big supermarkets. Essentially, what we do is we sandwich the chain between our two nail brushes, and then we backpedal, and the little bristles will clean the chain inside and out. Now, you might need to do a bit of modification of your nail brushes, maybe trim the inside bristles down slightly so it does fit nicely around the chain.

There is a specific tool for the job as well. This is called a chain bath or a chain cleaner, and essentially, it is a more convenient and, arguably, significantly more effective way of cleaning your chain. It's designed specifically for the purpose. You simply sandwich your chain in there. Fill the top reservoir with degreaser, and then backpedal your chain through, and it gets clean.

You will always need to finish off with a sponge and hot, soapy water just to make sure you get all the degreaser off. That is absolutely vital, in fact, because if you don't, any residue will mean that your chain oil won't stay on properly. So this guards against it. The next step is to dry it with a rag and then re-lube your chain. Now, it's probably a good idea to use some kind of aerosol lube first. That way your chain is completely dry, and it'll stop it getting rusty if you have to store your bike outside.

 There aren't really any occasions where you would just clean your chain. The rest of the bike does need a good clean as well, and seeing as you've got your cleaning stuff out, you might as well. So you can paint your degreaser onto a cassette and onto the jockey wheels as well. Now, I know a lot of you do worry about getting degreaser into sealed bearings, thinking that perhaps that will then decrease the lifespan of your bearings. And to a certain extent, that might be true, but it's certainly not essential to dismantle your bike every time you're going to clean it.