Finish Line Super Bike Wash - Test
Winter time in particular means muddy and dirty bikes. Summer time generally means dust depending on where you live, however whatever the weather keeping your bike in fairly clean and in working order is important. Finish Line has been making bike specific lubricants and cleaning liquids for years however when it come to mud and mountain bikes Muc-Off has been the point of reference. We decided to put the Muc-off down and try Finish Line’s Super Bike wash.
We started with a fairly dirty and oily bike, the rear cassette is the first place to look when seeing how dirty a bike is.
The Finish Line cleaner is designed to be sprayed onto the bike before you start washing. Leaving the cleaner for a few moments helps breakdown the dirt as does also rubbing the bike with a brush activating the product. However we just left the bike untouched with the brush as we wanted to see how good this stuff is on it’s own.
Super wash is sprayed onto the dirty bike and left to do it’s work.
After a few minutes we washed the bike with a powerful hose and got into all the difficult to reach parts to remove all the mud. It’s worth noting that we had two bikes and both were very dirty before we started. After washing with the Finish Line Super Wash, the bikes came up pretty clean. We could see that the dirt washed off more easily with the product than without. We left a small part of one bike without the product to see what difference it made, although hard to see in pictures, what was evident is using a wash product like Finish Line Super Wash removes all the dirt and residue. Normally if we have not used any cleaning product once the bike has dried, there is often a dusty/muddy remnant left on the frame and lumps of mud can be found in some places, with this bike wash product the frame was left shiny and clean, no residue.
The key test for us was the cassette after washing.
Returning back to the cassette our bench mark for cleaning. With a liberal amount of product applied and washed only with a strong hose, all the oily dirt and grease has been removed. We were actually impressed with the power of the product and how well it cleaned/dissolved the dirt. The cassette was almost like new after cleaning, in fact we could see that we needed to oil our chain a bit more, as the old grease and dirt was hiding signs of light oxidation after our ride.
Conclusion
Finish Line Super Wash is in our opinion a great bike wash product that works really well, we can’t say it is more powerful than the others out there but we got the feeling that it did leave the bike exceptionally clean with no residue. With heavily dirty/muddy bikes we think that it is advisable to spray a little more than less and we estimate that used generously a bottle will last about 6-8 bike washes depending on how much you use and how dirty your bike is. There is no doubt that washing with this product makes your bike look really great afterwards, as all residues are dissolved and washed off with nothing left behind. The advantage of this is you can see wear more easily and take note of what needs maintaining on your bike. At around €15 for a bottle we would say that it is a good buy and for those riders who hate washing your bike, it will actually make your life easier and your bike cleaner more quickly.
Test Product supplied by Bagnoli Bike
