My excellent bike mechanic told me that in Europe the cyclocross people dunk their bikes in a river to clean them. Not being in Europe etc. she told me to use a very small spray of very low pressure water from a hose on my mountain bike. I ride on fine sand and it gets into everything and coats the bike [and me ].

I use a soft sponge to wipe the bike off after the water, then cloth or paper towels to dry it and ream out all the grit I can reach that has not been removed by water. After that I use Bike Lust and then Pedro's extra dry on the chain.

One place I can't reach to clean is the inside of the front fork bushing, because of the way the fork is made. Is there a long flexible brush out there that I could use to clean the grit and dust off the bushings?

What do those of you with mountain bikes to do maintain your forks on a regular basis?