How to - Clean your bike

How to -

Clean your bike (don't panic, it doesn't take that long to read)

Cleaning your bike shouldn't be a four hour chore to be battled through, we hope this guide will help show you how you can keep your bike in top notch conditions with as little effort as possible.

When you're ready to start, pop the bike up on it's centre stand. If no centre stand is fitted consider buying a paddock stand, they're cheap as chips now and it'll make it easier to clean round the bike and allows you to spin the rear wheel and tackle the chain. Fitting lift bobbins to the rear swingarm will make using the stand on your own safer and easier, short video here shows how Using a Paddock Stand

Before you start lay out your store. Having all the products and equipment you're going to need set out and ready will allow the job to run smoother.

Don't work on a hot bike or in direct bright sunshine. Pretty much all cleaning products contain water and these conditions will evaporate the water off too quickly, leaving potentially damaging concentrates behind.

Pre-rinse the bike thoroughly. Surprisingly few people do this but it will rinse off any surface dirt and rehydrate the dried on stuff making it easier for the shampoo to work on it.

Start with the dirtiest area and get rid of any grease and oil, usually the back wheel, chain and swingarm. Use a spray on degreaser or our Halo Smart Degreaser Shampoo is designed to tackle oil and road dirt so no need for a separate solvent degreaser, safer for your bike and no messy residue on the driveway afterwards. Use a wheel brush to get round spokes and to clean the chain and sprockets.

Let the degreaser/shampoo do the work for you. Spray on, agitate with the brush to work it in then leave it to do it's job on the dirt. It's called 'dwell time', usually no more than a couple of minutes which allows the chemicals to work on shifting the dirt. If you're using shampoo don't let it dry on, use your garden hose or pressure washer to lightly mist the bike to keep it moist, if using a bucket then a trigger spray or pump bottle filled with clean water will do the job.

Heavy soiling may need more than one application. Most cleaners have a 'saturation point' after which they can't tackle any more dirt. To keep on scrubbing is just shoving the same dirt around and wasting energy. Apply, rinse and if necessary reapply. It may not seem like it at first, but a couple of applications is a more effective way than trying to tackle it in one 'hit'.

When you're done move on to the rest of the bike. We don't use cleaning cloths or sponges when shampooing as these can trap dirt particles which get pushed around causing the dreaded swirl marks in paintwork. Our preference is to use the trigger spray bottle and a soft bristled brush to apply and lightly agitate the shampoo on the area we're working on then once again let it 'dwell' without drying out. The long handled brushes we supply are ideal for the job and get into hard to reach places without taking the skin of your fingers.

Work methodically completing one area before moving to the next. Zip zapping from one bit to another will just cause you more time and energy going back to redo bits you missed. After just a few washes you'll know which are 'problem' areas that need more attention and you'll have developed your own routine.

Once you've completed the shampoo stage, thoroughly rinse the bike working slowly from top down. We can't stress this enough, thoroughly rinse off. The biggest proportion of damage we see on bikes is staining from cleaning chemical residue left behind because of poor rinsing. If you're using a pressure washer finish off by removing the lance and using the handle to rinse a 'sheet' of water over the bike.

At this point the bike should be pretty well cleaned, you'll probably find, however, areas of more stubborn dirt that has bonded or become ingrained (very dried on bugs for example). Shampoo generally doesn't have the clout to tackle these. Don't fret and don't waste time trying to scrub it off, you'll more than likely just damage the surface, we'll deal with these areas in the next stages.

Time to dry the bike. Don't take it for a run down the road, you'll just cover a wet bike in road dirt and undo the work you've done. Don't run the engine to get it hot and dry off the water, it'll generate steam that will enter waterproof grommets and seals where it'll then condense and form trapped water. You'll know about it six months down the line when your electrics and electronics pack up with corrosion. Set the bike on its side stand to let water drain from it and use a waffle weave microfibre cloth to dry the paintwork. One of the best investments you can make is a proper bike dryer such as the Metro Air Force Blaster, although the smaller and less expensive Side Kick version is more than ample for the job. At less than the cost of a decent pair of boots it's a real work saver and gets an amazing amount of water out of the bike in short time. It's not a bike site, but you can read it reviewed here.

Lets move on to those stubborn areas like bugs and any tar deposits. Lightly spray on Tar & Bug Remover over these areas, it'll need to dwell on there for up to five minutes so while it's doing that we can use a Wheel Cleaner to tackle the wheels. With the oil and road dirt removed anything left will be brake dust, brake dust is nasty stuff. It's very sticky and highly corrosive, the pads contain carbon fibers, metal filings and adhesive. The adhesive is the real problem, it's acidic and adheres to the metal filings and wheel surface. The metal filings are red hot from braking and will burn into any wheel coating. Our Halo Smart Wheel Cleaner is just the job to deal with this. Spray on, lightly agitate and leave for no more than a minute then rinse thoroughly, repeat for heavily soiled wheel. All Wheel Cleaning products are aggressive, do not let any dwell on for more than 1 minute. When you've finished go back and rinse off the Tar & Bug Remover you applied earlier.

You're now ready for polishing 'if it's needed'. Seriously ingrained dirt, oxidisation and minor scratches will leave paintwork, chrome and metal looking dull and lifeless. Most polish contains micro granules designed to scour off the top layer of lacquer or metal thereby cutting back to a clean surface, it's basically liquid sandpaper. Pressure and the heat from friction break the granules down as you use it to produce a finer surface finish, bit like working from coarse through to fine sandpaper. Work a small area at a time. Finish off with buffing to a shine.

You notice we said 'if you need polishing'. It's a common misconception that you 'polish' after every wash,... you don't. Apart from the fact that it's the hardest work part of the cleaning, if you did that every time then after a year or so you'd have no lacquer coating left! remember it's like sandpapering. You'll generally only need to polish the bike two or three times a year to get the shine up, once you've done that you seal that shine in with a good quality wax.

So we come to the final stage of the cleaning, applying the wax. It acts like a barrier to stop the nasty stuff getting at that nice shiny surface you just polished, so put it on after every wash. Our Halo Smart Motorbike Wax goes on amazingly easily and quickly on any surface, has dirt and brake dust repellents and leaves a glass like, high gloss, finish. Apply it sparingly, about a ten pence piece size blob will cover half a tank, no need to apply any pressure just wipe on leave for a few minutes to haze then buff off with a deep pile microfibre cloth.

Handy Tip

To get the best results use about 20-25 pounds of pressure when rubbing and keep going till the polish turns clear, good tip is to press down on a set of bathroom scales so you can gauge what 20-25 pounds of pressure feels like then apply that amount of pressure to your bike polishing.

Handy Tip

Having wax residue left in bolt heads and fairing joints looks a bit naff. To avoid this, apply the wax to your cloth then lightly wipe the liquid off on a section of flat paintwork. There'll now be enough damp wax left on the cloth to wipe over those bolts and joints without depositing liquid in them. Get rid of any residue already there using a soft toothbrush lightly smeared with wax

* Halo Smart cleaning products described on here will be available from our online store being launched on the 1st August