How to clean cassettes?

Cleaning your chain and cassette is a bit like cleaning your favourite Tea mug. All it needs is a light clean to get read of the top layer of clart, leave the rest as is or it’ll never be the same.

Agree with Stevet1. I remove wheel, spin and spray with a bit of GT85 type-lube; then get an old rag and fold in half, run the fold back and forth through the gaps. The cassette will spin as you clean, whole thing takes 2 mins.

Bit of water, then Muc Off chain cleaner with a scrub from the Muc Off claw brush, followed by water rinse from bucket and drying from an old tea towel.

Having cleaned the chain with X3 cleaning tool, with water rinse and drying towel, chain and cassette get Prolink Pro Gold (or whatever it is called).

1. Use a wax lube like Squirt and it won’t get so mucky in the first place 😉

2. Washing up bowl, water, dash of fairy liquid*. Soak, scrub, job done.

Not that I clean them like this very often. Only really if I have reason to take the cassette off and it’s still good to use.

With Squirt lube a lot of the time, a quick hose down on the bike and the cassette and chain are shiny anyway.

* – yeah yeah, blah blah, salt in the stuff will eat it. Balls to that. Never had a problem in the years I’ve been doing it.

p.s….

3. Stop cleaning your bike/components so much. Just ride it. 😛

How the **** do you fit a cassette in a jam jar?

Use smaller cogs and HTFU

Broken hacksaw blade offcut of 2mm alluminium sheet for poking out bits of grass, twigs, mud, etc.

I do like Squirt…

I use the kitchen degreasing machine, just make sure that the plates aren’t underneath.

Spray degreaser of choice on, leave for a couple of minutes and brush it a bit.

Cleaning your chain and cassette is a bit like cleaning your favourite Tea mug

quick rinse under the cold tap then ?

Remove cassette. Put in parts washer at work. Job done.

Dishwasher!

IPA on the heads and capstan rollers. Allow to dry.

I found mine comes up functionally clean (greasy looking, but with all the dirt and excess oil gone) using only my trusty plant sprayer and *very hot* water. About 60c and set the nozzle to a mist setting, then hold the nozzle really close – the speed of the hot water jet just peels the accumulated smegs off leaving only the oil residue (probably useful).

No chemicals, less chance of contaminating the hub grease and less rust spots from overcleaning.

For a reasonably eco friendly grease, just use melted candle wax with a spray of gt85 on the mechs and perhaps a little on the chain. Obvs this comes off really easily with hot water, so…

I normally spray with GT40 or similar then run a rag/edge of an old towel back and forth between the gaps -takes two mins and comes up like new.

To clean the chain I’ll normally soak with GT40, run through a towel to clean off the dirt then re-grease.
occasionally i’ll take it off and give it a proper wash with white spirit.

I don’t buy any fancy bike cleaning products – all a bit of a waste of money in my opinion.