Cleaning your bike chain is part of bike maintenance.
Dirty bike chain will wear out more quickly than a maintained bike chain, but also, a dirty bike chain might slow you down.
Maintaining it will extend chain’s life, and you will enjoy your ride even more.
A clean and oiled chain is way much better than old greasy & dirty chain for sure.
In this post, I will tell you the easiest way how to clean your bike chain, but I will also mention the best bike chain cleaner tool which will make your job a lot easier.
Also, using bike repair stand might be useful when cleaning bike chain.
The Easiest Way To Clean Bike Chain
In order to maintain a bike chain, there is a procedure to follow.
If you have a dirty and dry chain, obviously you will need to get it in a better shape.
Bike Chain Degreaser
Degreaser will break down and remove the grease, oil, and wax that builds on bike’s chain and drivetrain.
I personally use and I suggest you use Finish Line Speed Degreaser.
Cleaning process
After using a bike chain degreaser, we are left with cleaning the mess.
The best way to clean a bike chain which was previously degreased is to use water.
Although, I prefer and I advise you to use a soapy water for a little bit better effect.
You could simply start scrubbing the bike chain which will take a lot more time, and will leave you with a big mess.
Or instead, you could use a tool which is specially designed for cleaning dirty bike chains.
The tool is simply called bike chain cleaner or chain scrubber, and it will do the job instead of you.
Simply connecting it onto the chain, holding the tool and moving the chain will scrub all the grease, oil and wax of your dirty chain.
It will take less time, and it will make no mess at all, which is great to use indoors as well.
Bike Chain Oil
There are specially made bike chain oils, and my favorite is dry chain lubes which won’t collect as much dust and other unwanted stuff on your chain.
It’s the best to look out for options and brands, and simply choose one.
I personally use and suggest you use Finish Line Dry Bike Lubricant.
When lubing the oil, you will want to put one drop on each connection on your bike chain.
After lubing your bike chain, take a clean rag and wipe it through your bike chain in order to collect extra oil.
Bike Chain Cleaning Tool
When I started writing this post, I wanted to mainly write about bike chain cleaning tool.
And in other posts, I will explain which bike chain degreasers & lubes to use, what shouldn’t be done, and the best techniques for cleaning dirty bike chains.
Now, I will explain you a little bit more about the chain cleaning tool, and how it works.
It’s a tool which will make cleaning bike chains easier and faster.
Using the tool will also leave no mess at all.
Why scrubbing your dirty bike chain manually and get your hands dirty when you can simply invest some money into the right tool for it.
How It Works
As I have mentioned earlier, for a bike maintenance it’s necessary to have and use some basic tools.
And you will need to invest a little bit into chain degreaser and lube as well.
Bike cleaning tool has little brushes inside which are designed to clean bike chain.
By rolling the bike chain while cleaning tool is attached, it makes your dirty bike chain to go through the roller and brushes inside which won’t only clean your chain from the outside, but also from the inside.
And we all know how it’s hard to clean our chain properly by ourselves with no help of the tool.
Filling the cleaning tool with soapy water and after rolling your chain through the cleaning tool for a few minutes, simply remove it and safely dispose of all the grease found inside the cleaning tool.
Change the soapy water inside the cleaning tool, attach it once again onto your bike chain, and simply give your bike chain another spin.
That way you will be sure that your once dirty chain is now a clean and shiny chain.
After using the chain cleaning tool, simply lube the chain with special bike chain oil and you are ready to hit the road.
Which Tool To Buy And Where?
If you have any local shops, you might want to go and check if they have it.
However, you can also order it online on Amazon.com and have it delivered right to your address.
If you were looking for the chain cleaning tool already, you have might have noticed that there are so many of them.
Which one to choose? And how to know if it’s quality one?
Park Tool CG-2.3 Chain Cleaning Tool
I would advise you to look for Park Tool CG-2.3 Chain Cleaning Tool.
I personally use it for a long time already, and it’s still working properly and it’s really doing its job. Also, it’s not expensive at all.
With the Part Tool CG-2.3, you will also get the ChainBrite Cleaner, and the Gear Clean Brush.
Gear Clean Brush is very good at cleaning your cassette and drivetrain because it fits inside the cassette perfectly, so you can reach and clean places you otherwise couldn’t.
Conclusion
Cleaning your bike chain is necessary for a bike maintenance and it should be done at least once a month if riding regularly and once a few month if you aren’t riding regularly.
All you need is some time, chain degreaser, chain cleaning tool (if you don’t want to scrub it yourself), and chain lube.
It might cost you something, but like for any other car, you will need to spend a little bit of money on maintenance.
Once you buy all the necessary things, you will be able to use them more than for one cleaning session.
Stay tuned because in other posts I will write cleaning process into the details and I will write about other useful tricks, information, and tools.
You can also find everything else inside the Bike Repair Training Course.
Do you have any questions?
How do you usually clean your bike chain and how often do you do it?
Let me know in the comments, and feel free to ask any questions!