Evelyn Dong of Park City, UTAH While I know the direct correlation between a clean drivetrain and a working drivetrain, I don’t always upkeep my bike as well as I should. Sure, I hose it off after a particularly muddy ride and try to keep the chain regularly lubed, but I’m definitely not one to be carefully threading a rag between each cog and chainring. I try to make sure it’s passable before I bring it into my home shop, White Pine Touring in Park City, but I usually have to take a few cracks from the shop guys no matter how clean it is. Needless to say, it was a good day when I first discovered ProGold Foaming Citrus Degreaser. It comes in an aerosol can (FUN!) and sprays out like shaving cream, so you can coat your drivetrain in mounds of foam. While its probably a good idea to give your drivetrain a good scrub with a brush to make sure you loosen up all the gunk, letting it sit for a minute usually does the same thing. Because I’m a lazy bike racer, I choose the latter option most of the time. Then I give my bike a good rinse, dry it off and dribble a little Xtreme lube on the chain and it’s good to go. When I bring my bike into the shop after beating it up at a race, its usually clean now, which makes my favorite mechanics a little less grumpy. Clean drivetrain = less surly wrenches. The GoPro Mountain Games were particularly hard on my bike. Vail’s mix of mud, snow and dust wreaked havoc on my drivetrain, but a few minutes with the Citrus Degreaser and my bike was shop-ready. The only dig the shop guys could come up with was ‘What dude did you get to clean your bike for you?’ I even decided to clean up my ‘cross bike after seeing how sparkly my mountain bike looked - it took some winter training abuse and its drivetrain was looking rather black and greasy. Shiny chainrings mean less ‘rookie marks’ on my leg, which, according to my roadie roommates, are not something you want to sport. I bring ProGold Foaming Citrus Degreaser on the road with me now, as well keeping a stash of it in my home cleaning kit - it’s easy to use, eats up grease and smells like oranges.
Posted on: Sat, 06 Jul 2013 00:37:35 +0000
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