The weather here in Northern Illinois has been touching above the half-century mark on the Fahrenheit scale for the past week or so, and this past Sunday we started to see temps in the honest-to-goodness 70 degree range. It seemed like a good day to wash the Expedition.
Well - to be honest, it mostly seemed like a good day to go for a ride. But I knew trike cleaning needed to be in my future. Besides the general need to do cleanup following three months of winter cycling, there was also a somewhat more acute need.
A couple of weeks ago I tackled a short segment of the Rock Island Trail. In the rain.
In response to the picture that accompanied the post one person very familiar with the trail commented that he was surprised that I was so clean. This because the trail is mostly crushed stone, at least in the area that I was riding. As is often the case, “crushed stone” can be a euphemism for “dirt”. And, of course, we all know what dirt becomes in the rain.
My very clever system for coming off the trail not covered in mud? Umm, well, I didn’t. I took the picture at the beginning of the ride, before I encountered said mud. Which is to say that we exited the trail, both the trike and myself, covered in a non-zero amount of mud.
Now, before you think that I am a monster who simply left my beloved Catrike Expedition coated in mud and dirt for the following two weeks, let me reassure you that I did wipe things off initially, and later hit some of the more troubled areas with a broom as well. But even with these efforts applied, it was clear that the trike was going to need more attention - a deeper cleaning, if you will.
With that in mind, I did the responsible thing with the 70° day: I washed my trike. ...But, you know, after I went for a ride. See, I really wanted that ride, and I knew the seat mesh was going to take a while to dry, and nobody wants a wet tush when cycling, so that just seemed like the right order for things to happen in.
I got out the hose and bucket and enlisted the help of a washing buddy...
Catrike and Dog, living together…
If we’re being honest, Calamity isn’t really much help in the washing department, but she’s pretty good company otherwise.
Given that I didn’t know where all of the dirt/mud might be I pulled the seat off of the frame. I am always surprised at just how different our machines look without them - positively naked:
Look away!
My trike washing technique is nothing special - essentially soapy water and a wash mitt in the same top-down approach that I’d use with a car. Maybe the biggest difference is the amount of grease and tar on the paint, which seems like more per square inch than on a car - but then the trike is exposed to an open chain, it’s inches off of the asphalt, and I probably (definitely) wash it less often than I do my car, so I suppose all of that makes sense.
Then I dry it off with an old towel. Somewhere, in the depths of my stuff I swear I have an actual chamois. Still, I’ve been thinking that for probably the past decade with no evidence to support it, so maybe I should just accept that it’s probably gone...
The nice thing about doing the wash with the seat off is that it gives a chance to look at the usually hidden parts of the frame - make sure there isn’t anything cracked, damaged, or otherwise out of sorts (all looked good this time). Even my formerly frozen front brake is back to working now that the weather is reliably above freezing.
For the seat I used the straps that go over the top bar on the frame to hang it from my clothesline pole.
Take a seat
This put it in a good position for both washing and drying. Washing, in this case, consists of a high-pressure spray with the garden hose, followed by a wash down with the mitt (with a more detailed focus on the plastic snaps), and then a rinse.
Then I put the trike inside and left the seat out to dry. I thought I was clever by doing so overnight - giving it plenty of time out there in the prairie wind to blow the moisture clear. However, the prairie had its own ideas, dumping rain on us - and my seat - in the wee hours. Fortunately we had enough sunshine the following day to dry it all up so I could get her back out on the road.
So, for all of my back and forth between riding and washing, it worked out ok to ride first and then wash the trike. In fact, it went so well, maybe I’ll do it again next year...