Waiting for me at the Dark and White Carsington event a few weeks ago was a goodie bag from Purple Harry’s Bike cleaning products. Purple Harry are now one of Dark and White's prize sponsors, and after contacting them they were keen for Stodge-Blog to try them out.
Bike cleaning is one of those chores you love or hate. Many riders spend, perhaps, as much time cleaning as they do riding, keeping their carbon steeds (worth possibly many thousands of pounds) shining and actually enjoying it. I am afraid I don’t fall into that camp, however after learning the hard way a few years ago, replacing drive train components left right and centre, I now try to keep particularly my mountain bikes as clean as possible.
Riding on Cannock Chase is particularly bad. Most lubes and oils pick up fine sand particles and then act as a rubbing compound on all your shiny bits, slowly trashing them. With replacement XT Rings, cassette and chain running to over £230 rrp, making these last as long as possible and spending a few pounds on good cleaning products has got to be worthwhile (as is replacing your chain at least 3 times in the life of a cassette) I don’t even want to look up how much XTR would set me back.
Last years Strathpuffer 24 was another good example. The fine sand there is even worse than on Cannock Chase. I think that one race cost me 6 sets of brake pads, a chain, a cassette and one front ring. If I had been able to clean the bike better between laps I suspect the damage would have been far less.
So on to Purple Harry. I cleaned my Bow in the same way I normally would post race. A quick hose off to get rid of the worst, a spray with the degreaser, a rub with a brush and then hosed everything off. I have in the past used Hope cleaner and the Purple Harry product was just as good, leaving the bike ready for a quick blast with the Maintenance spray (I have used GT85 in the past). You have to be a bit careful with the maintenance spray as it does come out very quickly in a huge cloud, but it seems to work and smells better than GT85, and with no propellants its better for the planet. I am told Purple Harry are working on a smaller bottle and spray which
will help for doing the chain.
With a shiny clean mountain bike, I thought I would give my road bike a birthday. The oily grime on the road bike took a couple of goes to get off, compounded by this time the fact that the hose had frozen and I had to resort to a bucket.
This time I used the new Bike Floss, Purple Harry’s new product which is gaining quite a bit of publicity. Simply it works, and works very well, particularly on the block. A few strands of Floss will definitely be in my bike bag travelling next year.
At this point in time, outside temperatures haven’t given me enough enthusiasm to use the bike polish with the special application glove, but once it warms up and my Bow is due for a full service I'll give it a go.
Oh, and I’ve got a nice Purple mug, too. It seems to hold tea, and particularly coffee, very well!
Purple Harry’s products can be all bought online at their ebay store http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Purple-Harrys. Their cleaning bundle at £18.50 would make a great christams present for any cyclist.
http://www.purpleharry.co.uk/products