Cleaning a Bike Chain (To Pedal Forward)

Now that it's spring and the weather is improving, I'm going to unearth my trusty bike and start riding again.  The weather was part of the inspiration, but watching the Giro d'Italia got me motivated too.

Sadly, this year's Giro has begun in such a tragic way with the death of the Belgian rider Wouter Weylandt.  Such a terrible loss.


On that somber note, it's off to clean my chain in preparation for this season.

I have this handy-dandy Park Tool PCS-10 mechanic stand.  I'm not sure that it actually holds a mechanic too well, but it is amazing for bikes.  Much better than squatting down to work on the bike.

Here's my bike on the stand.  There is a clamp that can grab onto a frame tube or an upright. 

A more closeup view of the clamp.  The crank on the top adjusts the jaws to hold the frame.  On the back side (hee hee) is a lever that loosens to allow the clamp to swivel through 360 degrees.  Basically you can position the bike in virtually any position.

The vertical tube also adjusts for height.  This thing is very well engineered.  Highly recommended.

Having the bike on a stand allows you to crank the bike to you heart's content.  Wheeeeeeeee!

There's a fair amount of grunge on the chain and sprockets. 

I take my trusty Park Cyclone chain cleaner to the job.  The green arrow shows where I've filled it up with Simple Green for the first pass. 

The top half of the cleaner comes off.  You pass the chain over a sponge and three brushes.  Then you crank the pedals backward (30 revolutions it says) and it scrubs the chain.

The chain after a pass with Simple Green.

I then rinsed the cleaner and ran a few revolutions with straight water.

Some nearby oregano plants.

For the second pass, I used this chain cleaner.  This stuff works very well, but it's pricey.  That's why I use Simple Green for one pass to get the worst of the grunge off, then the good stuff.

All clean.  I have a brush that I dipped in the cleaner to get the sprockets clean.  Looks a lot better now.

The last step is to apply a chain lube.  This is another Park Tool product.  Put some on, let it sit, then wipe off the excess.