Washed my bike today

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Looked over my bike carefully this warm afternoon. I've put about 1000 miles on it since July when it was new.
I saw lots of black grime and then realized that there was lumpy crud all over the silver brake parts and a few dried earthworms slung over my brakes and fork. YUK. Also other unidentified UFO slime pieces here and there that might have been bug guts at one time. Never noticed it much until looking closely (except for mummified Mr.Froggie a month ago who was removed separately).

Ok, so I got out a bucket with hot water and SimpleGreen mixed 1 to 1 like the directions said for degreasing....and got to work with sponges and brushes. It actually didn't take long. With sudsy brushing twice over, the worms and the black grease melted away and everything looked bright and new again. I rinsed thoroughly with a gentle hosing (no blasting any water into the hubs, mind you!). So nice! I will be working more intensely on the chain, rings, and cassette etc. next week with bike chain degreaser and totally new lube, but this was nice to get the general heavy cleaning out of the way in the meantime. Even my tires are clean now. A good feeling.

[DebW]

Good for you, Lisa. I recently found some squished worms wrapped around a couple of my spokes.

[SadieKate]

I'm pretty meticulous when it comes to my mountain bikes but I just go merrily along with my road bikes because the pavement is so much cleaner. Right? Eww. Do not look at your bottom bracket without preparation.

[mimitabby]

Worms???!?! eyewwww gross!

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Yes Mimi, worms. Lots of them.
Seems worms love to cross the paved roads during rainy seasons. Some stretches of road I see hundreds of little wromy smudges on the road - that USED to be worms.
The live worms I try to avoid hitting (last month it was wollie bear caterpillers in droves on the road), I zigzag around considerately dodging the nightcrawlers.
But I thin k some of the already squashed ones wind up on my tires and get flung over my bike as i ride. I agree...GROSS!
It's not like every day, mind you, but I'm putting in about 100 miles a week these days, and worms happen. Then they dry up on my brakes or my bottom bracet or under my downtube where I don't normally look every day. Like like strings of beef jerky spaghetti.

EEEEWW!!!!!

But my bike is now sparkling CLEAN (for the moment).

[Triskeliongirl]

That's great! Now that you know its not so hard, you can start to do it more often. I wash our bikes 1-2X per month. It will make your drivetrain last longer and perform better. I like to start with the heavy degreasing first, followed by the type of cleaning you describe, since the degreasing will leave drips that need to cleaned off. I don't take the chain off, just use one of those devises you fill with degreaser and roll your chain through. Enjoy riding your clean bike!