From my personal experience, there was a saying at a company I used to work for: "Cleanliness is part of performance." Keeping things clean allows you to spot small problems and prevent major malfunctions before they occur.

Above all, it feels good to have things clean.

But when you clean it, it often doesn't get as clean as you'd like.

△ICAN 36 PIE Carbon Spoke Wheelset

This time, I'll show you a method that dramatically cleans your bike.

No special detergents are used.

Just a regular rag and a melamine sponge.

■ What is a melamine sponge?

The "melamine sponge" we'll be using is a type of sponge primarily used in kitchens, often sold at 100-yen stores.

Its characteristic feature is a hard skeletal structure created by foaming melamine resin at a micron level.

Familiar product names include "Gekiochi-kun".

That's it.

It looks like a simple white sponge, but it gives the impression of being finely textured.

It's soft and fluffy.

Just looking at it, you might wonder if it can really remove dirt.

But its effectiveness is significant.

■ Tire Cleaning Method

First, before cleaning, it's embarrassing, but the whole thing is black, isn't it?

The inside is uniformly black, making it seem like it was always black, but these tires were originally pure white.

I'll also tell you about methods I've tried that didn't work.

Car tire cleaning foam is good for cars, but it produced too much foam for bicycles and wasn't quite suitable.

Washing with household neutral detergent was pretty good, but scrubbing with a brush was quite a hassle.

Since it gets relatively clean, I, the author, have been washing with detergent and a brush until now.

This time, we'll cover an easier and more effective method.

First, spray the entire tire with water diluted with about 20 parts kitchen neutral detergent.

(Leaving it for about 3 minutes seems to make dirt easier to remove.)

If the dirt is difficult to remove, diluting the detergent with hot water will increase its effectiveness.

A temperature of about 50 degrees Celsius seems to be most effective.

(This varies slightly depending on the detergent.)

Then, gently rub it with a melamine sponge.

Rubbing it a few times is enough.

Specifically, about 5 back-and-forth strokes.

Rather than cleaning spot by spot, wipe about 90 degrees of the entire wheel at once.

After that, wipe off the dirt with a rag.

This alone will make it dramatically clean.

Moreover, since melamine sponges have a very fine texture, they don't seem to cause any noticeable scratches on the tires.

They also don't make it easier for dirt to stick afterwards.

Cleaning the front and back of both tires doesn't even take 10 minutes.

Given this effect, there's no reason not to do it.

△ICAN GRARO Gravel Frame

■ Frame Cleaning

For cleaning the frame, dry wiping is best.

However, dry wiping doesn't remove 100% of the dirt.

While it's easy to think "it has to be 100%," try to shift your perspective a bit.

Instead, switch your mindset to "70% with dry wiping."

Thinking that 70% is sufficient makes the wiping process go much faster.

And, the finishing touch is a melamine sponge.

Just a light wipe on the front fork makes this much of a difference.

Areas facing the diamond are hard to reach with hands, and rags and melamine sponges are also difficult to fit, so cleaning those spots might be best done moderately.

If you clean it too meticulously, you might become reluctant to get it dirty the next time you ride, which defeats the purpose.

Thinking "it's okay to be moderate in hard-to-clean spots" suddenly makes things easier.

Melamine sponges wear down easily.

Since I used it on the entire bike frame and tires this time, this is what it looked like after cleaning.

It turns out that it's quite easy to clean without much effort, so next time I should be able to clean more effectively and regularly.

I hope that message comes across to you through the images.

■ Results of this cleaning

The whole process took about 15 minutes, but the entire bike was cleaned.

Recently, my bike had gotten dirty, and it had been bothering me.

I tried to find an easy way to clean it, and this method worked well.

When you clean and maintain something, you find small imperfections.

This time, I discovered a crack in the tire.

In this condition, there's no particular problem with riding, but I wouldn't have the courage to embark on a long journey without noticing it.

In that case, I would replace the tire a little earlier than planned.

Just by doing this, I was able to avoid potential accidents or trouble.

Therefore, I recommend regular maintenance and cleaning to stay informed about the detailed condition of your bicycle.