Basic Road Bicycle Maintenance : Cleaning a Bicycle Chain

After a few hundred miles, your bicycle chain can acquire a lot of grime. Learn to clean the chain of your bike correctly with expert tips in this free sports video.

Expert: Robert Davis
Bio: Robert Davis is vice-president and a founding member of the San Luis Obispo County Coalition and president of the San Luis Obispo Bicycle Club.
Filmmaker: Patrick Eaves

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• bikes
• bicycles
• bicycle
• maintenance
• repair
• spokes
• tires
• tubes
• patches
• flat
• washing
• cleaning
• chains
• parts
• free
• how
• to
• Expert
• Village

[Marchand2]

Thanks for the video, really appreciate people like you helping new riders with bicycle maintenance tips.

[peterpiranha]

bitch can clean her own driveway.

[timgaylehughes]

dude expert village is nuts... 130000+ videos??????

[shimanopower]

dirt isn't biodegradable?

[WRTYIO]

I think that chain cleaning box is just a 'faff'  doesn't an old rag and with appropriate cleaning solution just do the same job. You still have to clean the cassette with something else anyway.

[datboysha40]

Use water to rinse the excess? LOL. I think the best way is to use a light degreaser like Simple Green and a towel. Spray the degreaser on the towel and rotate the chain through. Then use a lube of your choice, and lube each link connection with a few drops. Let the chain soak in the lube, then go back with a clean towel and get the excess lube by rotating in chain throw the towel. Tadow. Sometimes it's better to use a small amount of degreaser in a towel, just to get the road grime off.

[210482fmj]

save urself money and don't buy a chain cleaner. some degreaser and a plastic tub if you can remove the chain easily and a brush then rinse and dry with cloth then toss in a tub with some oil. dry and not dispose of the the dirty water on the ground or let it go down drains. instead soak it up from the plastic tub with tissue paper and bin the paper. much better for enviroment as it can then be incineratedb without water pollution

[PemboCycling]

@bastardmakervdh I use water through the chain cleaner at the end of cleaning since it will flush any degreaser out.

Water + oil = oiled chain

Degreaser + oil = no oiled chain

Never had a problem as the chain is dried with a rag as it exits the cleaner (so isnt dragged onto other components) and after 10 - 15 mins I put oil on the chain.

[danyel19090]

hmmm I don't like to clean the chain with water because of the rust and for the free wheel it will be rusted

[TagumTrailRider]

@middlemanclayton WD-40 for some reason is not good for the chain( i Just heard that from some people), and if you spray WD-40 directly to the chain, you might also accidentally include the discbrakes or the rim which make your brakes slip(very dangerous if you're going really fast)

[IYUB30]

Thank you very much! This helped a lot.