PSA: Clean your chain!

[Xavias]

Luckily this isn't a "hindsight" post. (AKA Nothing went wrong!)

But it's just a friendly reminder to clean your chain while you're lubing it. My chain and back tire was ridiculously caked with a bunch of road grime and junk to the point where a friend made a comment about it. My chain and sprockets were only about 9 months and 4-5k miles old, so I decided to clean them before going on a group ride. Chain lube worked great to clean it all off!

As well all know: :needpics:

So here you go! Before:

And after!

 

[darius]

Nice. You cleaned it using chain lube though? What stuff?

I just did mine with a bit of diesel.

1. Apply diesel with toothbrush
2. Scrub with grunge brush
3. Rinse w/ water
4. Ride to heat up the chain
5. Apply chain wax

 

[bdevries]

Did you clean your sprockets while you were at it? I used Motul's Chain Clean and it worked incredibly for everything.. But I also took the back wheel off so I could disassemble things to clean the back of the sprocket etc.

 

[Xavias]

I just cleaned everything with Liquid Wrench Chain Lube. Seemed to work great! Cleaned the front of the sprocket and as much of the wheels and back of the sprocket as I could. Didn't bother taking the wheel off as I didn't have much time before the group ride.

 

[dbldutch02]

Oh dear, if that's dirty then mine must class as filthy, filthy, filthy :shakehead:

 

[FIZZER6]

Mine looks like yours did as well. I clean it every 250 miles or so and lube but I only scrub the rollers and inside of the chain with a tooth brush. The outside of the chain being shiny is only for aesthetic purposes and will get dirty even faster again. 20K miles on my chain and it and the sprockets still look great and I have never had to adjust the slack of my chain between changes, it has never stretched out.

 

[mnuttall87]

The guy who parks next to me at my apartment is a perfect example of what not to do with your chain. I'll post back a picture this afternoon.

 

[ErikNYC]

The guy who parks next to me at my apartment is a perfect example of what not to do with your chain. I'll post back a picture this afternoon.

Where's the pic?Blah