Is a muddy bike a good bike?

So I’m quite lax with bike cleaning: unless the mud is actually coating something that moves (like a mech caked in mut and leaves) I’ll likely just let the mile or so ride along the road home shake the worst off and leave it as is in the garage until I eventually decide it should have a wash, which happens once every few months.

My theory here (apart from just being lazy) is that mud is less wet than water, and less likely to seep into bearings, and less likely to wash grease off stuff than cleaning agents, so actually leaving it a bit muddy is better for the bike than scrubbing it clean after every wash.

Do most people agree with me here, or am I some sort of vile heathen for starting a ride with a dirty bike?

I’d go for practical over theory here.

mud is less wet than water, and less likely to seep into bearings

Mud is a good holder of water and attractor of moisture and allows that water lots of time to seep into anything rather than evaporate

Santa Cruz agree with you:

Q: I’m lazy and lack motivation, what can I do to prolong bearing life?
A: Stop washing your bike so much. We did some experiments with bikes that were washed a lot but ridden infrequently, bikes that were ridden a lot but washed infrequently, and bikes that were both washed and ridden a lot. Guess what? Your bike hates only being washed and not being ridden. This test group had the worst results. They became creaky and not much fun to be around, much like the people who own bikes like that. Don’t get all angry (you know who you are), you can still wash your bike from time to time – and there are those times where it has to be done after every ride. Everything needs more attention during those times. BUT, maybe you should examine your priorities. It’s a mountain bike. You can get dirt on it. It’s OK.

Wash your bike…

I’m with the OP.
Clean drivetrain, forks, dropper and shock after a ride.
Not bothered about the rest.
Mountainbikes SHOULD be dirty-ish – I thought it was the law 😉

I agree with you (and I’m an engineer 😉 ). I keep fork and stanchions fastidiously clean and lubed, I lube and clean the chain (and sometimes deep clean in paraffin). Otherwise it usually stays dirty. Keith @ Banshee agreed too, he said he’d never washed his Spitfire! Water is bad. And why anyone would use detergents that remove oil and grease is beyond me…

I’m in a minority though – at the start of my last race I think my bike had more dirt on it than all the others combined!

That’s pretty much my approach. I’m do like seeing others’ shiny bikes but I just can’t be titsed cleaning my bike thoroughly and often. I just look after the drivetrain and suspension. Brush mud from pivots and bb etc.

Recently, I’ve been cleaning my bikes with a vacuum cleaner

I keep the drive chain clean, the rest of it generally looks like it’s been dragged through a swamp, I brush off any mud clods and sponge the frame down now and again lol!

That’s a big plus point of Ali alloy.. It doesn’t degrade like steel, so a film of muck won’t do any harm.

i keep the suspension/drive really clean, that’s it.

When i was a mechanic, immaculate bikes were one of the following –

.spotless outside, full of dirt inside
.spotless outside, zero grease/lube where needed
.simply never used

I agree with the OP, mountain bikes should be dirty – introducing more water just seems wrong. Then again, I don’t clean my car either and so I am probably just lazy.

I nearly got a T shirt made like this but I’m not sure if the Blood Honour brigade would approve.

I ride my bike everyday. Cleaning it would be a waste of time.

Mine are never really clean tbh- my white hemlock was so dirty for so long, I had to use wet and dry paper to get it back to white 😆 But they’re clean where it matters.

I like my suspension clean and the drive train clean.

the rest waits until I feel up to it.

Well I like my bikes clean and creaky so screw you all.

I never wash a dry bike, but if it’s wet and muddy when I get home then it gets hosed off. If dry, a wipe and fork juice on stanchions and dropper and next day a brush off

Agreed with op. Keep the moving parts clean but leave the rest. Worked out a long time ago that water kills bikes. Especially in winter when a wet but clean bike gets put in the shed and then stays wet for days on end, plus the effects of frost on a wet bike.

I have a theory of all those disc brake pads falling apart a few years ago was in fact frost forcing the wet compound away from the backing plate. Lost a couple of pairs when I washed bikes regularly, now I dont ive never had a disc pad fail.

oil the chain, every now and then, then when gearing gets funky, replace drive train and cables etc for not much, repeat.

The drive train is a disposable part of a bike.

give the rest of the bike a jet spray once a year, usually before you replace the drive train.

The only time my bike gets cleaned is if I need to work on it.

Mud can keep the heat in or keep the bike cool, stops insects biting and acts as a natural sun block. Mud is also great and making your bike invisible to alien Predators who wish to remove your bikes headset and use it as a trophy.

Google Fact

Bike gets a deep clean when I travel internationally so 2-3 times a year – which reminds me I need to find the grease gun for the lower links.
Apart from that it’s clean ish, the road spin home does for most of it, drive train and moving bits get the worst removed.

We did some experiments with bikes that were washed a lot but ridden infrequently, bikes that were ridden a lot but washed infrequently, and bikes that were both washed and ridden a lot. Guess what?

This is the really important bit
Most people go on and on about how they do x,y AND z and they get all this use out of stuff and they have done it forever (I’m looking at you chain removers) but they have no control to compare against. How much better is what your doing?

if the mud dries you can knock most of it off with a nylon brush?

and then clean the drive train with an old toothbrush and a little degreaser if needed

lube/wipe/lube/wipe the chain with some dry lube and a clean rag

fork/shock/dropper stanchions easily cleaned using dry lube or silicon spray and a clean rag

disc brake rotors and pads using aerosol disc brake cleaner, clean rag and quick post-cleaning ride to settle them down

We did some experiments with bikes that were washed a lot but ridden infrequently, bikes that were ridden a lot but washed infrequently, and bikes that were both washed and ridden a lot.
Guess what?

That Santa Cruz are based in California?

I’d wager that the ‘dirt’ they’re talking about is a thin coating of dust, not 10 kilos of Surrey Hills clay or Peak District slurry.

That Santa Cruz are based in California?

I’d wager that the ‘dirt’ they’re talking about is a thin coating of dust, not 10 kilos of Surrey Hills clay or Peak District slurry.

Biggest shock in the world, it rains in other places 😉
The part was they did some back to back testing.

Peak Slurry is mostly gone by the end 😉 and why do people insist in riding through wet clay? Go ride on the rocky stuff.

A muddy bike is a poorly cared for and often poorly maintained bike.
Cleaning a bike at the end of a ride is a good way of identifying problem/defects and a clean bike is much more pleasant to work on.
Dirty bike = lazy owner.

You do know that on the 3 days that it rains in soCal they don’t ride right?

My bike is cleaned after every ride it takes me all of about 20mins wow!, mostly as it lives indoors and I rent, but it’s £££ worth, and why would I let that sit with loads of crap and leaves on it. any bike that claims to be OK offroad that can’t be hosed down, because bearings! is a pile of crap.

keep the drive train and stanchions clean after each ride, the rest i’ll clean every 5 rides or so

Dirty bike = lazy owner.

Or just more important things to do…

A clean mtb is like low profile tyres on a defender

My bikes are always reasonably clean, I’m not anal about it but like them to be vaguely presentable. The thing i do find about a good clean is that’s when you find any cracks or dents.

Get a portable pressure washer that works from the car electrics, 10 mins later after ride a nice shiny bike, easy – no effort really. Quick lube before the next ride and you’re done 🙂

after 5 years of not washing my bikes my conclusion is bearings last longer and the brakes require next to no fettling.

after 5 years of not washing my bikes my conclusion is bearings last longer and the brakes require next to no fettling.

same here…weird isn’t it. 😆

Get a portable pressure washer that works from the car electrics, 10 mins later after ride a nice shiny bike, easy – no effort really

Well, some effort and it’s worse for the life of your bike.

Stopped cleaning bikes in 2003

If there was a product that was dirt* cheap and for next to no effort made your bike shiney…would the “leave it dirty” mob use it?

*see what I did there… 😆

Nothing to do with cost and effort. It’s what’s best for the bike. I wouldn’t sacrifice life of components for ‘shinyness’, that would be a weird priority for me but I can understand that it is important to some people.

These days I rarely wash my (only) bike.

After a recent linkage (vpp) strip down and clean & regrease I noticed that the non drive side bearings were clean and the non drive side were full of brown water & grease. I never use a pressure washer on my bike, just a very pathetic hose with my finger occasionally over the end.

I can only deduce that the drive side naturally sees more water during cleaning and as such has let water past the seals.

So for the past couple of months I’ve just been doing the usual drivetrain and stanchion clean, the rest of the bike just gets brushed off.

If there was a product that was dirt* cheap and for next to no effort made your bike shiney…would the “leave it dirty” mob use it?

Nope.

Cleaning a MTB is like cleaning a tractor. There comes a time when you simply CBA