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Do You Pressure Wash Your Bike? Don’t Do It!

By Adam Marsal

It’s so simple. You just insert a coin into the high-pressure water jet machine at your local petrol station, and within a few minutes your dirty bike is clean again. It’s quick and almost effortless. But do you actually know that this way you’re killing all the sealed bearing assemblies contained in headsets, bottom brackets, pedals, hubs and other moving parts? It’s obvious that water inside a greased bearing assembly is a bad thing, more specifically because it washes out the grease out of bearing areas. Another thing is that using that much water is logically environmentally unfriendly. 

Clearly, you can alternatively use a bucket and a rag or a garden hose, but not everyone has a garden to do so. That’s why we were pretty curious about a bottled No-H2O treatment intended for cleaning bikes. It comes from an Irish company which is focused mostly on car and motorbike users, and is a proud supplier to Hertz car rental company. No-H2O is the only product of its kind to be approved for use on both Boeing and Airbus commercial aircrafts. They also offer a cleaning solution for bikes and so we decided to find out how this strange thing works.

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Our friend Richard Gasperotti brought No-H2O with him to the Marosana End of the Season event where he took part in the enduro race. As the weather was pretty dry, the bike didn’t get muddy, but still it was far from being clean after the ride. No-H2O is made with a scratch-free formula which emulsifies the dirt particles. It has a positive charge in the product, and with the negative charge from a microfibre cloth, the dirt is encapsulated in the cloth removing the dirt and leaving behind a polished finish. It means you only apply the cleaning stuff on your frame or another part and then you wipe off the dirt with a cloth. It’s easy and smooth.

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Although it takes more time than washing the bike with a hose, it can be done even in a flat or in a garage. As soon as the microfibre cloth gets dirty, you just wash it under tap water or in a washing machine at a temperature of around 30°C and reuse it as much as about fifty times before it gets rough and must be replaced. You will probably struggle in an attempt to clean a downhill bike after a day-long muddy riding in the rain. In such cases, running water is still irreplaceable. However, it’s a very good help for moderately soiled mountain bikes and a great stuff for road bikes. You’ll be surprised how easy it works.