How I Clean My Bicycle Chain

Here’s the steps that I use for cleaning my bicycle chain:

1. Remove chain from bicycle. SRAM Powerlinks make this easy.
2. Put chain and Powerlinks in a bottle (PETE or glass, not polycarbonate).
3. Fill bottle roughly 1/4 full with Finish Line Citrus Degreaser (or any other strong citrus degreaser), place cap on bottle.
4. Agitate (shake, rock, etc) bottle, then let it sit with the chain submerged in degreaser. Periodically agitate, letting it sit for half an hour or so.
5. Remove the chain and Powerlinks from bottle using needle nose pliers.
6. Put chain and Powerlinks in laundry tub and rinse with lots of hot water. Be sure to rinse inside the rollers, between plates, etc.
7. If outer plates continue to be dirty, coil chain (as when originally packaged) and scrub using a toothbrush and a little bit of degreaser. Rinse again.
8. Take chain outside, holding one end, and spin it above your head as if you are a wrestler in a video game. Do the same again holding the chain from the other end. This removes most of the lingering water.
9. (Optional.) Place chain and Powerlinks on the rack in the oven. Set oven to 250°F. Remove oven from chain once oven is up to temperature. Place on a metal surface to cool. This removes the remaining water.
10. Lay the chain out on a metal surface and put one drop of ProGold Xtreme Chain Lube (formerly known as Voyager) on each roller. Prolink is also a good lube, but it doesn’t last as long. Put a drop on the inner part of each half of the Powerlink.
11. Pick up the chain by both ends and lift one then the other, allowing all the pivots to flex, working the lubricant into the chain.
12. Lay the chain back down in the puddle of lubricant and let it sit for a while (30 minutes or so).
13. Wipe the outside of the chain down with a paper towel. There is no benefit to having lubricate on the outside of the chain; it’ll only collect dust.
14. Reinstall chain.

After cleaning the chain leave the degreaser in the bottle. Over the course of a few days the sediment will settle out, and the remaining (relatively) clean degreaser can be poured off of the top, the sediment rinsed out, and the clean degreaser returned to the bottle for the next time chain cleaning is needed.

When the chain starts making noise and more lubrication is needed I do follow-up applications by applying one drop per roller while the chain is on the bike, pedaling backwards for a while to work it in, then wiping the chain down with a paper towel.

Using ProGold Xtreme I can typically get around 200 miles of somewhat-dusty SE Michigan mountain bike riding out of an application. The regular Prolink is a bit less, maybe 50-70 miles before the chain starts making noise.

I also use this technique to remove the factory lube from chains. While it is a good lube it’s a bit sticky for my tastes, as it seems to pick up dirt and gunk rather quickly and leave a fair bit of greasy dirt residue on the drivetrain.