Shops that offer a place to clean/lube your bike?
As my Girlfriend gets upset every time I clean/lube my bike in the apartment (there is bike grease EVERYWHERE) any recommendations on shops that have cleaning areas that are available for public use? I saw that rapid transit has an area, but it appears you have to pay for it.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Kevin Mulcky on
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Why don't you just lay down a beach towel under the bike when you clean it, or do it on the patio/yard/sidewalk/alley?
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Permalink Reply by Far'arned Retrogrumpalunkus #63 on
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Permalink Reply by Gene Tenner on
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An old shower curtain works well. Do not use the current one - good ladyfriends are hard to find.
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Permalink Reply by Bill Savage on
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Take it outside. Most bike shops, rightly, would want you to pay them if you use their space to clean/lube your bike. They have rent to pay!
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Permalink Reply by Julie Aberman (Hochstadter) on
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West Town and Recyclery have open shop. I know West Town has a sink/shower for bikes.
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Permalink Reply by Joe Willis on
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I go outside my apartment by the hose or the tub. If you chouse the tub plan an doing some scrubbing when you are done!
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In addition to a drop cloth to keep the area clean under the bicycle, a simple Bottom Bracket stand is handy if your bike doesn't have a side-stand and/or you don't have a full-on folding mechanic's stand.
I have and use both. The bottom bracket stand is very handy when washing a bike outside at my condo building's hose location. Not only can the bike be held upright while washing it, but the cranks can be turned and simple mechanic's tasks like oiling the chain or checking the derailleur indexing adjustment can be performed without needing to put the bike on a real mechanic's stand.
A 5-gallon bucket, a dollar-store kitchen scrub-brush, and a supply of automotive-type car-wash detergent is all you need to clean a bike.
Some Tri-flow and the chain oil of your choice (I often just use motor oil from an eyedropper and wipe off excess with a paper towel) are all that is actually necessary for "lubing" after the bike dries. Grease is only really used when rebuiding. Unless you are pulling apart bearing assemblies or swapping pedals "grease" shouldn't be in your everyday/everyweek/everymonth cleaning regimen.
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Permalink Reply by Joe Studer 8.0 mi on
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As a city condo dweller, with no real ability to use a hose outside, I use the tub / shower all the time to clean my bikes. (Granted, I used the tub in our second, or "my" bathroom.") Benefits to this include the fact that I can use the tub year round (cleaning is much more frequent in the winter months), and I have ready access to everything (e.g., tools, lube, soap, towels, etc.).
On the downside, I definitely have to clean the tub after cleaning my bikes.
Joe Willis said:I go outside my apartment by the hose or the tub. If you chouse the tub plan an doing some scrubbing when you are done!
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My building turns off the water to the outside in the winter to keep the pipes from freezing. It shouldn't freeze but invariably some bozo will hook up a hose during freezing temperatures and use it (no problem) and then leave the hose connected and filled with water. THAT will cause the hose bib to freeze back into the building and the guy who has the basement/garden unit on that side of the building is REALLY tired of having his kitchen flooded. Thus the new policy is to shut it OFF after the first big freeze.
SO, when the hose bib is shut off outside I fill my 5-gallon bucket with warm water from my tub + automotive carwash detergent and wash my bike outside like usual. When I'm done with that, I'll poor the rest on the bike and go back inside to fill the 5-gallon bucket again with warm rinse water. I'll rinse down the bike with the brush and a rag and finally pour the rest of the rinse water over the bike. Finally, I'll towel dry the bike after bouncing it a few times on the tires over the concrete walkway to shake most of the drip off.
If you don't go nuts with a ton of soap (you don't need much) you don't need to go nuts rinsing it all off.
All you need to have is a 6x8 foot area outside to use a bucket of water drawn from your bathroom and you can do this all outside even in the dead of winter. Work carefully and don't get water all over yourself and this works just fine. This isn't brain surgery. I'm sure most people can find a 6x8 area outside somewhere. It's a lot easier to find some space outside than it is in a cramped bathroom/bathtub.
Bring the bike inside afterward to dry WELL before trying to ride it in freezing temps. Give yourself enough time for such drying when it is cold outside. Try to keep water out of cables and such as it takes forever for them to dry if water gets in them.
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Permalink Reply by Lanterne Rouge on
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How often do you wash in the winter? Now that I'm using a steel bike, I'd want to keep it as clean and salt free as much as possible. With my aluminum bikes, IDGAF, and saw no adverse effects.
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I don't ride a steel bike, so I'm not so much worried about corrosion. For me, the issue is my drive train. When that gets gunked up, I wash the bike. The weather is the primary factor in how soon the drive train gets gunked up. There are times when I am washing the bike at least once a week. However, if there hasn't been a lot of snow / slush, I might go for several weeks without washing the bike.
Jim S said:How often do you wash in the winter? Now that I'm using a steel bike, I'd want to keep it as clean and salt free as much as possible. With my aluminum bikes, IDGAF, and saw no adverse effects.
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I have been washing my CX bike after each ride/practice lately. You'd be surprised what a mess it is after just an hour or so riding around Humboldt park in the morning. I'm sure I'll need to wash it after each race too. Maybe between laps even but unfortunately I only have one bike and no pit crew :( Team Blackheron is accepting applications for pit mechanics and other helpers...
I wash my bikes only when they need it in the summer, in the winter I wash them when they get really salted up. It really depends on the weather, how many snowfalls there are, and the salting of the roads.When it comes to the drivetrain I am a fan of just slobbering on oil in the winter on my city bike. In the summer I yank the the chain when it looks dry or dirty and soak it in a high-detergent oil bath (ATF and/or Marvel Mystery Oil mixed in with synthetic oil) really gets a chain clean after a few days soaking. I have 2 chains for my derailleur bikes so I can swap them out while they are soaking.
I'm not a fan of "washing" a chain with water or water-based solvents. Getting the water back off is more trouble than it is worth. When it is really yucky out I prefer to ride a bike with an 1/8" single-speed type chain with an IGH rather than ride a derailleur drivetrain in the yuck. Such chain is cheap and if, at the end of winter, I need to toss it out I"m only out $5 so I don't worry too much about lubing it maniacally. This will be my first winter riding and training on a road bike or my CX bike. I think I'll just play that by ear. I'll probably end up swapping it out more often and dumping my chain soaking solution more often too as it gets yucked-up with salt and debris faster.
As far as steel is concerned I'm not really worried about it too much. Wax and oil go a long way towards keeping bare metal parts from rusting excessively. Oil can be wiped on with a rag on chips & scratches and the frame gets a good coat of wax every year or so or when I have the bike stripped-down for maintenance. This is why I am fanatical about using ONLY automotive-type car-wash detergent which will not strip off wax like many other soaps/detergents. Dish detergent will strip wax right off and should never be used for washing a bicycle unless you want to re-wax and stripping it all off is your plan. I buy car-wash detergent by the big bottle when it goes on sale at Menards or at an auto-parts retailer. I bought a big quart bottle of it last year at Menards for $.99 on sale. That should last me for a year or more of washing bicycles. You don't need to use much -a capful or two in a 5-gallon bucket is enough to lather up and to get grease and road grime off without stripping my thick wax I painstakingly put on the frame and other parts to protect it.
Also, don't be too trusting on aluminum not to corrode in the presence of salt and moisture. Aluminum DOES corrode and when salt sits on it sometimes it will raise welts, cause pits, and create bubbles that can't ever be polished out. It's deep into the structure of the metal. Aluminum is susceptible to salt and can be damaged just as easily as steel can corrode. I once rode my Honda dual-sport motorcycle over a winter in Wisconsin and by spring the rims were totally shot. It looked like someone was dragging an energized welding rod all over them from the salt-corrosion. The same could happen to aluminum bike frames, parts, and rims.
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