Pet? Child? No, it’s just…

…my bike.

I’ll explain.

It was a beautiful midwinter day yesterday: low thirties, breezes, enough sun to make the day both sleepy and crystalline.  I had a two-hour slog planned for the trainer, when I thought I’d pull a trick your mom used to use, back in the day. I don’t have those nifty neoprene overboots for cold weather cycling, so I grabbed a couple of plastic bags, tossed a handwarmer in each one, wrapped ‘em around my feet and then encased the whole kiboodle in my shoes: windproof and a vapor barrier, all for cent-fractions.  Headed out all bundled for a February ride. About fifteen minutes out the tube on my camelback froze (I’ll pause here while you consider just how unhip I am in riding circles: plastic bags, a camelback, sheesh), so I took it off and put it underneath the windbreaker, something I’ll do forever, now, in cold weather.  It took a while to unfreeze, and so my dehydrating mind wandered over several topics, one of which was how different real riding is from trainer-riding: it’s harder, for one good thing. But eventually I noticed all the salt and grime that was building up on my bike.  Now I was riding my cross bike, because my mountain shoes are a bit more insulated than my tri shoes (those have holes in them to let water drain away), and my cross bike is steel. How’m I gonna get all this crap off my bike? I thought. If I leave it on, I’ll forget about it and it’ll be rusted through by Wednesday.

Then it came to me.

Why hadn’t I ever thought of this before? I’d always sought out unmanned hoses, or dumped bucket after bucket on my stand-hung bike. This would be so much easier, and the mess would just drain away.

I’d take a shower with it.

The long and the short of it is: it works like a charm. The water pressure is low enough that you don’t have to worry about your precious bearings, and it’s easy to direct the flow to get all those hard to wash areas. Then, as your bike is drip drying, you can clean yourself up, too.  Go over your bike with a dry towel, and then hit those bolts with some lubricant, to keep them rust-free.  Re-lube the cassette and chain and there you go, a clean bike and its clean rider.

There’s no moral here, unless it’s one of love.