| What's the difference between mountain biking and road biking? Well besides that mountain biking is much more fun. The answer is that your mountain bike will get much more dirty than your road bike and require cleaning more often assuming you clean your bike at all! There are different ways to go about cleaning your bike and some people will just blast it with water which is not really the right way to do it. What you can do instead is get a brush kit that allows you to clean off all the caked on dirt without having to use a hose or without damaging your bike's finish (if used correctly). Pedro's makes a variety of bake care and products including chain lube, pumps and wrenches. One item we like is their Pro Brush Kit which allows you to clean your bike without too much effort and without the hose. |
|
The Pro Brush Kit comes with 5 different brushes for different tasks. We have seen a couple of 5 piece kits slightly different brushes as well as a 4 piece kit so what you will get if you decide to buy them may vary. Each brush has a different purpose but some are more useful than others. What you will get in this kit include a large frame brush, tapered frame brush, chain ring\cassette cleaner, fine haired brush and a thinner all-purpose brush.
We have found that the large frame brush works well at getting dirt off the frame after it's dried up. If it's some serious caked on mud then it will take some work to get it off with this brush since the bristles are a little on the soft side. The tapered brush works really well at getting into those tight areas where the large brush won't fit. One thing we didn't like is that the bristles on this brush can get flattened out easily if you try to force it into too tight of a spot. The chain ring brush works okay but seems like it should not be quite as stiff to help get in between the rings and the teeth on your cassette. The bristles on the smaller end are more flexible and work good at getting grit out of those tight areas. We find that an old toothbrush will do a really good job for this type of cleaning. If you want to do some detailing then that's what the fine hair brush will help you out with but then again how many people detail their mountain bike? Finally the thinner all-purpose brush works kind of like the tapered brush but lets you get into tighter spaces and has a bendable handle which can be a good or a bad thing.
Overall it's a decent bike cleaning brush kit unless you ride in a lot of mud then it most likely won't do the job. We didn't notice any paint damage while using the brushes but you want to be sure not to use your chain ring brushes on your frame after getting oil or solvent on them. And if you find yourself having to scrub really hard to get the dirt off then your bike is most likely too dirty for these brushes to handle and you may risk putting some scratches on your bike's finish. So if you mostly just ride in dry\dusty conditions then the Pedro's Brush Kit should do the job when it comes to cleaning your bike without water. The brush kit does comes with a handy nylon bag to keep everything in one place so you don't end up losing a brush or two.
