Let’s be honest, unless you have a fetish for cleaning and washing things then washing your bike is the least noble of motorcycling pastimes. In fact it could just be that necessary evil we all need to do from time to time.
I know somewhere in the world, somebody has invented a spray that will get your bike sparkling clean and shiny without leaving any drying spots either…and without the need of any hand cleaning either. Yes just hook it up to a pressure washer, apply the magic fluid and it’s done to a showroom finish…well that is the holy grail at least for me.
I do a lot of off road riding as well as ride in all weathers on the road, so the bike gets dirty and covered in road film and bugs quite often. So I have varying degrees of washing which are my defaults.
If the bike is just muddy dirty, then a quick hose down, let it soak, then hose down again usually suffices with a bit of detergent sponge and brush to go over the paint and nooks and crannies.
If the bike need a good old deep clean then the pressure washer comes out and the foam gun too. Many applications of detergent later with lots of sponging and brushing, then it’s ready for a polish or ACF 50 treatment, depending on the time of year.
No what I’m not telling you is that I’m usually swearing all the way through and my hands get a bashing in the meantime.
You see, to get a good clean of the bike you really need to get in the awkward spots, and there are seemingly endless places dirt and grime can accumulate on a bike.
The brushes are never quite long enough…so my next buy or modification with be a series of long handle brushes of varying sizes to make the process easier.
And the final drama, depending where you live and if you have a hard water supply, is to finish washing the bike before the sun dries it out and leaves horrible calcium deposits everywhere. No amount of bloody chamois in hand seems to stop it, so you’re left to a late night wash out of the sun with chamois at the ready just to catch the dribbles as they appear.
Now I don’t know about you but that just sounds bonkers to me.
So I have put my mind to work and have come up with an inexpensive way to soften my water supply with a wall mounted water softener in a housing and connected it to my outside tap which then feeds my hose and pressure washer in turn.
I’ve seen inline filters on the web for £60-100 or more and they have a short life limit too. So I looked elsewhere and found domestic and commercial solutions for £25 that will do the job just right and hopefully keep my work down to a minimum and keep my knuckles from bleeding too.
Anything to make like easier and which allows me more time on the bike can only be a good thing.
I’m sure I’ll make a video of the whole set up soon.
Leave a Reply