How do you give your bike a bath?

[Sandrider]

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?

[papaver]

My excellent bike mechanic told me that in Europe the cyclocross people dunk their bikes in a river to clean them.

Yes and no. The mechanics do that sometimes during the race when it's so muddy the cyclist has to change his bike every round or every half round even.

After the race they almost completely dismantle the bike to clean it.

This is a rather normal race in Belgium:

[Sandrider]

Yes and no. The mechanics do that sometimes during the race when it's so muddy the cyclist has to change his bike every round or every half round even.

Thank you for the education and for the great photo!!