How To Get A Perfectly Clean Chain + Drivetrain | Mountain Bike Maintenance

With a clean chain and drivetrain, your shifting will be smoother and your bike will work better. Here's how to do it.

A black, gritty, dirty chain looks bad, will wear out more quickly and doesn't work as well. Depending how often you ride, cleaning the chain on your mountain bike might be a weekly job – or even more regular. It's worth doing this job thoroughly – using good degreaser, chain brushes, rinsing your bike chain thoroughly and then drying it with a rag.

Once your drivetrain is clean and dry, apply the right chain lube. Depending on the weather, this might be wet lube or dry chain lube. The clue with chain lube is in the name – wet, grimy winter weather = wet lube, dry, dusty weather = dry lube.

Leave your questions down in the comments and don't forget to SHARE this vide with a mate whop has a filthy bike!

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Music
Per Ljungqvist, Donnie Dragon
- Misbehavin'

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Leave us a comment below!

[Calum_S]

1) wait until mum/wife/girlfriend goes out.
2) strip drivetrain off bike.
3) put drivetrain in dishwasher.

[stuhouchin]

I don't get why 11 people have given this video a 'thumbs down'.
It's free, it's good advice. What more do people want? Scotty to come round and clean their chains for them?

[CanIHasThisName]

It is ill-advised to use degreaser every single time on your chain. In fact, degreaser should be a measure of last resort for chain cleaning, as it washes out the precious high viscosity lubricant that can only be put into the chain during manufacturing. Of course, during muddy winter, it becomes necessary very soon.
Best way to clean the cassette is to remove the rear wheel from your bike, spray the cassette with degreaser (yes, yes, while not contaminating the brakes), wait two minutes and then rinse it off with healthy amount of water. Usually you won't even need to use a brush or anything. Cleaning the chainring(s) is best done when the chain is off. Especially if you have a 1x setup, there's no excuse for not taking the chain off.
In order to properly clean rear mech wheels, it's best to take them out of the derailleur. It's difficult and sometimes impossible to clean them properly and when they get really gritty, they'll put up lot of resistance because the dirt will get packed in there really tight. Taking the jockey wheels out is pretty easy, it's just one screw and I'd argue it's the most efficient way of cleaning them, as you're guaranteed to get out absolutely all of the dirt and it'll take you five minutes at the very most. Do it with the bike upside down and the rear wheel unmounted. Also be aware that the tension wheel may be one sided.

[hairypaulmmwab]

Got a fancy chain cleaning device for Xmas, (plastic 'bath' type with 3 brush wheels in it) Gave it a go & found it is more faffing about than it is worth & did not properly clean the chain. Went back to manual chain cleaning with brushes & had much better results with less fuss :-)

[jyeberry]

best way I've found to clean the chain is to slit a sponge straight down the middle and run it through where Scott did with the brush and treat it like a chain cleaner. Best of luck!!

[earlgrey]

*Uses 100 litres of water*..."looking pretty good!"

[jcmymtb]

That slow motion shower turned me on!!

[oliverminshall]

can you do a vid on how to do a service like the ones at shops.

[DanPotter]

Great Vid as always, Just one point to note though probably better to lube the INSIDE of the chain not the OUTSIDE as this is the side contacts more of the moving parts within the drivetrain.

[KnightTemplar]

That "dirty" chain is already 100 times cleaner than my chain.

[olivierhacking]

Great video! However, using water only works just as well - just be sure to use a good brush to remove the dirt. If done correctly, the chain will spin very smoothly after cleaning with only water!

[dansotelo]

I'm a professional mechanic with over 40yrs of experience... Whatever you do, never ever put any type of degreaser or cleaning solvent directly on your bike! If you want to clean your chain, cassette, or chainrings, you need to remove them off your bike and then clean them to your heart's content. Placing any type of solvent on your bike will immediately enter your rear hub bearings, your free-wheel cassette bearings, and your bottom bracket bearings and ruin them. Any type of solvent or degreaser has very high capillary action and will easily go past any sealed bearing. I get to see this all the time where someone purchases a new Hi-End bike and wants to keep it spotless and in less than two months they come to my shop asking "why is my rear hub making so much noise?" I ask them "what type of chain cleaner are they using?". They proudly answer "why I use the best Park Tool model C-bla bla bla, chain cleaner they have!" My Heart Just Sinks... Yet another beautiful new high-end bike ruined because of these stupid Park Chain tool cleaners, costing the consumer hundreds of dollars to replace all those bearings on the rear hubs and bottom bracket.
SO PLEASE DO NOT CLEAN ANY DRIVE TRAIN PART DIRECTLY ON YOUR BIKE, YOU NEED TO REMOVE THEM.

[Warrior]

I do a complete strip down and degrease / clean of all the drive train, my bike is 3 years old and looks brand new.

[ThePlasticDragon]

looks good! It would be fun if you could test how clean the chain really is after a normal thorough wash.

The last time I cleaned my chain it looked really clean. Then I twisted a few links slightly and you could hear a crackle from the dirt still stuck in the chain...

[SHWELL]

I use Aluminum Specific Simple Green, it is tough, but safe to use on most metals and finishes. Find it to work extremely well for my needs. I have to order it online by the gallon. It isnt available in most stores.

[oscarjorgensen]

nice vid, I just got a new moutainbike and i love these maintain vids so i can keep my bike fresh

[ArthurKiyanovski]

well done! I watched other videos, went to do the job and made a ton of errors. And your video really covers it all.

[mattlaw]

The thing it doesn't show which I have trouble with is cleaning the back side of the derailleur/jockey wheels and chain ring, always really difficult to try and get brushes in from the other side. To clean the chain I use a chain cleaning tool, much less mess and does a great job.

[walknrollers]

Nice job. Simple, basic, no complicated tools.

[henrifischer]

what I would like to see - in at least one of the "clean your drivechain" video's of which there are so many - is how to responsibly deal with the pollution that it produces. Like the dirty water and rags. The only thing I have seen is presenters advising to use bio-degradable degreaser. There must be more we can do to keep oil and grease from ending up in the environment.