Degreasers!

Looking on line some people say don’t use WD40 as a cleaner and others  say don’t use it as a lubricant.

WD40 is a good solvent and will remove lube from the chain bearings, but if you effectively add lube again afterwards there should be no problem - as many people on line also say. I can’t think of any mechanism for it to “destroy bearings” other than people wrongly assuming WD40 is a spray on lube.

On this one I’d go with your practical experience rather than what some boy in a shop said.

Confusingly WD40 also sell a spray chain lube product - I have no idea if it is any good.

All I use wd40 for is to help get water off the chain after washing the bike down, once it has flashed off I add my chain lube.

Rarely have to use any actual degreaser, I use a fairly clean running lube and washing the bike with muc off and a brush gets the crud off. I think muc off is a detergent rather than a degreaser but could be wrong.

I use water with a squirt of washing up liquid in it, then rinse with the hose, no need for anything more fancy than that. Tiny squirt of WD40/GT85 on the mech afterwards to drive any water out

That's what I thought guys.

Some one bought me a top end cleaning kit for my road bike years ago.  I didn't find it made a difference one bit.

Looking at the prices, I will just use what I have.  I used to do a couple of thousand miles every year on my road bike and as I said I don't have any noticeable problems.

Chain bearings?

Is confused...

Though, turps/WD40 will drive any internal grease or lubricant out of the rollers. So relubing properly is always good... Have found bikes with a mix of degreaser, water and old grease inside the freehub/hub. So that's a concern if you splash it around too liberally.

Chain bearings?

A stock chain has 117 of them. Tend to be referred to as rollers, but they are a plain bearing

I've used a splash of Screwfix's finest No Nonsense degreaser on really dirty drivetrains and to remove that sticky grease on new chains. However, I only use it on components off the bike to avoid buggering up other bearings, brakes etc through accidental contamination.

I use whatever bike cleaner/degreaser is on offer - diluted for the bike, concentrated on the chain and cassette. Just careful where I splash the concentrate.

A club mate who has a bike repair/restoration business recommends wiping a chain down after every ride woth a rag sprayed with WD40 if you aren't cleaning it properly afterwards.

I've found that really good for keeping chains in good nick - I often ride 2-3 days back to and don't have time to clean the bike every time, but wiping the chain and relubing takes 2-3 minutes.

When I want a proper clean chain,  take the chain off and put it in a jar with white spirit (loads cheaper than real turpentine).

Lid on, shake it about a bit.  Then let let it sit for a while. Then shake again.

I stoped using expensive bike-labelled degreasers years ago.

Then a quick rinse with water, and squirt with Isopropyl alcohol to get the residue out from inside the rollers etc (otherwise you get a black mess 2 minutes into the next ride).

Nice and clean and ready for proper re-lube.  Essential if trying wax or Squirt type waxy lube.

On my chain I use Paraffin, followed by a bike wash product followed by a thorough drying and then a re-lube with a wet chain lube.

Paraffin is great at disolving all the 'crap' that gets on your chain while the bike wash removes the last of the Paraffing and any remaining 'crap'

For the rest of the bike I just use the bike wash stuff.

Large bottle of chain cleaner from Halfords is pretty cheap, brush on, wash off.  Unless it's a warm day, after I wash a bike I spray the chain with wd40 to drive the water away and prevent rust, then chain lube (currently the Park stuff) before riding.

Lidl have got some cheap bike bits out now it's spring, picked up an aerosol of chain degreaser and one of  brake cleaner at £2.49 each but not tried yet.

Got an aerosol of WD brand degreaser but the directions say don't use on plastic or rubber so I keep it away from the bike. Can't imagine the Lidl stuff is any safer tbh

Those WD brand aerosols are pretty good, got a few- penetrating oil, contact cleaner, grease, brake cleaner etc, but cos they all look similar you end up spraying penetrating oil instead of grease or brake cleaner instead of wd40

1:5 dilution of any all purpose cleaner works well for me. Chain off, leave it to soak, dry off and re lube.

1:10 dilution for the rest of the bike

The wipe with wd40 and then re lubing the chain, is pretty much what I done as a roadie for 10 years.  Glad I ain't the only one.  It was the look on the boys face when I said what I did that made me think I may be missing something obvious.

WD40 is a perfectly good cleaner, it's chemically not far different from white spirits with a little mineral oil in. It does leave a residue though. It can dull some paint a little but not often with the typical paints used on bikes.

Any strong degreaser can cut through and remove the stuff you don't want to remove, and it's harder to get it back in than remove it. Chains are the perfect example, just applying new lube almost never does as good a job (soak-in lubes are better, like hot wax)

. Bearings are usualyl pretty well protected, you need to be spraying directly onto them to penetrate generally, except with really basic open bearings like crap headsets.

Paraffin is also an excellent degreaser, or isopropyl alcohol, but tbh you just don't often need a strong degreaser on a bike on anything but the chain. Traffic film remover/muc off/similar will do the job most of the time.

I have a 5litre bottle of degreaser. I put a tiny amount of it on two taped together opposing toothbrushes and then run the chain backwards through it a couple of times and rinse off.

I have very white teeth too.