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Spring is in the air.  Finally.  If you are a cyclist there is a very large gap between the start of Winter when you quit riding and the beginning of Spring when you begin riding again.

It’s about two months early for Spring to show its colors out here….and in spite of the calendar, the grass is getting green, trees are budding, and folks are spending time outside.  Pretty soon when it warms a bit more there will be clean cars, gardening services rushing from yard to yard, and outdoor fitness buffs will grudgingly show off their lumpy acquisitions of weight gain while they trudge along to some unknown song playing on their music player.

And if you’re me, your bicycle just got a bath.  I haven’t been riding lately but noticed a layer of dust had settled on the paint, also saw I had not scrubbed the goo-cumulation from the last ride back in October, and could NOT tell by looking at the dark cluster of grease toward the back of the bike there were gears back there waiting to power the bike on down the road!  So I gave CashFlow a bath.

Up she went onto the bike stand and my attention turned to the rear wheel.  The cassette was detached and summarily reduced to the parts of its sum with spacers, gears, and the end cap were drowned inside a half coffee can full of Simple Green.  The de-greasing had begun.

The bike then received a full wipe-down with a damp cloth.  Chunks of road tar were addressed with a toothbrush dripping with more Simple Green and lot of TLC.  Another wiping with the cloth and CashFlow was looking like her old self!

Now the wheels.  I think you can clean just about anything if you take the time and apply yourself to the task at hand.  Greasy spokes and road grime had given the bike an old beat-down look to it and the goal for today’s bath was to remove that layer of ugly and replace it with the look I am accustomed to….this was a Beast-to-Beauty transition, and it would make me a happy man to do the work.  I used the toothbrush soaked in Simple Green to remove the layer of grease on each cog and spacer.  Only when they looked all bright and shiny would I move on to the next one.  And I made a promise this would not happen again!  We’ll see how that goes.

After re-assembling the cassette with those shiny new looking cogs, the rear wheel looked great.  Of course I cleaned up the front wheel and when they were both put back on the bike, CashFlow looked great.  I am so proud of her!

CashFlow is clean now, and with Spring nearly here, I better figure out how to get my newly acquired weight into some cycling shorts and start working it off so CashFlow can be proud of me too.

I still need to clean the chain, but I’ll do that before my first ride….which will happen soon!