Over the years I thought I’d used just about excuse I could for not cleaning my bike, but a friend recently told me a new 1 that I’ll certainly use. We were sitting around our table at a restaurant and he said that he had taken his ‘new’ 2011 bike to a shop to get the 1000 mile service done. When the wrenches had finished the service they had the service manager bring my friend back to tell him something.

“You’ve got too much Armor-All on your tires!”, the mechanic said. “If you go into a turn and the tire goes on the sidewall where all that stuff is the tire could slide on the pavement causing you to wreck.” They went on to say that they had tried to get some of it off but there was still way too much. Of course all of us who he was telling this to were laughing our butts off.We said they didn’t have to push the bike to move it because it would slide at the touch of a finger.

You see we all know the guy’s son is a clean freak (he spends more time cleaning than riding) who cleans, washes, waxes and polishes all their machines. We’re sure he’ll be heartbroken to not be able to slather on gallons of Armor-All to keep those tires shiny. But we also know that regardless of what someone says, those tires will be clean.

Image and Post: Sam Kanish

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