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Woodruff green, raspberry red and lemon yellow. The bike cleaners wobble in their pump bottles as colourful as sparkling refreshing water. They smell floral-tart and fruity-sweet, but some also have a biting odour. I hold the liquids up to the light like a somelier holding a wine glass. I would love to pour myself a full glass and let the surfactant cocktail foam in my mouth with relish. Even one or two colleagues have jokingly asked for a tasting. But that would probably not be a good idea. Even though the 18 bike cleaners in our test are all labelled as biodegradable: Right next to the information on environmental compatibility, there are usually signal red danger signs. They warn: corrosive or hazardous to health. We therefore refrain from tasting the cleaning products and prefer to subject them to a quality test in the laboratory.
Are cheap cleaners just as good? Cleaning products from 6.90 to 16.99 euros in comparison
Cleaning performance, material compatibility and handling - we based our test criteria on Dr Wack's test standards. However, we then carried out the test itself in our own laboratory. The chemists at the Ingolstadt-based company are experts in care products of all kinds and have been refining standards for over 20 years to make the performance of cleaning products comparable. The most important criterion is, of course, cleaning power. A cleaning agent that doesn't clean is as superfluous as the derailleur mount on a single-speed drivetrain. The tinkerers developed a standardised dirt for the test. The asphalt-grey, viscous paste is made from solvent, oil, grease, soot and pigment dirt and is intended to reflect the real dirt on the bike. I certainly don't want to spill it on my trousers. So I use a pipette to apply the test dirt evenly to aluminium plates that have been degreased beforehand. After an hour to flash off, I dip half of the test strips into a beaker of bike cleaner and allow the surfactant mixture to take effect according to the manufacturer's instructions. I then hold the aluminium plates under a powerful jet of water and observe how much test dirt is washed off the surface - without any manual action. The more, the better. Sometimes the dirt only comes off gingerly, as if you were scraping off the top layer of a scratch-off lotion. Sometimes the test dirt slips off the carrier plate like a pizza from a plate, leaving behind a sparkling clean test disc. With a few candidates, the water jet splashes as if over granite and nothing really happens.
You can read what the chemists at our Ingolstadt laboratory found out about these 18 bike cleaners and which cleaner does its job best in the test, which is available as a PDF in the download area below:
- Atlantic complete cleaner
- Ballistol Bike Clean
- Dr Wack F100 Bicycle Cleaner
- Dynamic Bike Cleaner
- Finish Line Super Bike Cleaner
- Motorex Bike Clean
- Muc-Off bicycle cleaner
- P.O.W. Ready to use
- Peaty's Loam Foam
- Pedro's Green Fizz
- R.S.P. Muddy Buddy
- SKS Wash your Bike
- Sonax Bike Cleaner
- Squirt Bike Cleaner
- Tip Top two-wheel cleaner
- Tunap Sports Intensive Cleaner
- WD-40 cleaner
- Zéfal Bike Wash
You can find the complete group test including all data, evaluation tables and grades in BIKE 6/2019. The PDF version of the group test costs €1.99. Why not free of charge? Because quality journalism has a price. In return, we guarantee independence and objectivity. This applies in particular to the tests in BIKE. We don't pay for them, but the opposite is the case: we charge for them, hundreds of thousands of euros every year.
You can read the entire digital edition in the BIKE app (iTunes and Google Play) or the print edition in the DK shop reorder - while stocks last:
Downloads:
Stefan Frey
Editor
