I read an interesting article on BikeMagic the other day. It was a review of a portable 12volt pressure washer. This was of interest to me because my garage has neither water or power making bike cleaning a bit of a faff. The only real drawbacks were the £100 price tag, and limited availability.

   Undeterred I did set off to my local DIY store with a backup plan... sure enough they didn't have the new pressure washer, but for £20 they did have a 3 Litre pressurised garden crop sprayer. I figure as pressure washers and bicycle bearing seals generally don't get on well together something with a bit less power might be a good thing!

   My requirements are fairly basic, I just want something that can remove the huge chunks of mud from my bike, and particularly from inside moving parts like the front derailleur. I find a brush can be a bit tricky on the fiddly bits and gets covered in oily gunk very quickly. So something squirty to get where cleaning implements can't. Generally I ride in clay types of soil that just jam moving parts up solid, but the Mendips have nasty sandy mud that really has to be removed from moving components, its so bad you can hear it grinding stuff away.

20 quid low tech jet wash

   To test out my new purchase I over-filled the sprayer with water and half a capful of car shampoo and left it in the garage while I went out for a muddy ride. Came back and the washing system was instantly to hand, a bit of light pumping and to my relief it was actually removing mud, and getting the gunk out of the hard to reach places.

   There are drawbacks to the new system: The 3 litres of water are enough to clean a bike, but only just, and I could really do with another litre. I suppose having a coke bottle full of water would allow me to do a rinse cycle without going indoors to obtain more water. The spray is also fairly weak, it shifts the mud you want to remove, but it tends to leave a muddy oily film behind as it doesn't have enough power to wipe the surface clean, and it certainly won't blast the oily gunk clean off the chain. It may be worth experimenting with cleaning products, using it with some form of degreaser, or bike specific cleaner might improve performance.

   In conclusion the garden sprayer fits my needs, it zaps mud out of the places it tends to get stuck, and I don't care about having a squeaky clean finish as long as the mechanicals work fine. Its not the miracle sprocket cleaning machine that I might have hoped for, but I think I need to try out a bottle cleaning brush for that task. It is a good no hassle approach to post ride cleaning that requires almost zero effort or setup time, and no danger of blasting water places it should not go.