Seasonal ambiguity is really messing with me right now. My typical behavior this time of year is hang the road bike up, put knobbies on the Bruiser and wait for a dry day to crank out the miles. I typically don’t really clean my bikes a whole lot, leaving that for spring time. This recent move to Austin has made me actually want to clean my bikes in the middle of winter. Now, this review is from the heart. I went out and bought these products because they’re legit and I’ve been using them for a while now. White Lightning makes some solid lubricants and cleaners and today I put some to work!

Check out some more photos below.

I picked up a bottle of Park Grease (only because they didn’t have Phil Wood at the shop I went to), a can of Clean Streak and a bottle of Clean Ride.

My poor Merckx MX-Leader was a mess. I hadn’t touched it since March and I slacked off after the first few times I used Clean Ride, putting Triflow over my nicely sealed drivetrain (more on why that’s bad later).

My chainrings were caked, as was my chain and cassette.

First thing’s first: degrease! While it’s recommended that you remove your rings, cassette and wash them in degreaser, then run your derailleurs and chain through a cleaner, I’m far too lazy to do that. The nice thing about Clean Streak is you really don’t have to do anything but spray and wait.

Just spray the shit out of everything. The pulleys in your derailleur, the chain, cassette and chainrings. I also zapped my brakes to get rid of some of the accumulated brake dust and the downtube and bottom bracket to get the road grime off.

After that’s done, take the Clean Ride and link by link, add a drop of it to the chain. Run it through the drivetain and wait for 15 minutes. Do this three times and your chain and drive will have a nice waxy coating on it. As White Lighting points out:

“Clean Ride is a unique, wax-based lubricant, so it is important to start with a clean chain. For optimum ‘self-cleaning’ performance, do not mix Clean Ride with oil based lubricants.”

Never, ever mix lubes. Huh huh.

Let it dry and maybe apply one more round. Usually, when it’s all dry, you can run your finger down the chain and it won’t be dirty. Pretty cool. Every few weeks, hit it with another application.

Now my bike is all ready to hit the road tomorrow. Next order of business: track down my missing dustcap. Even if the Cannibal didn’t ride them, I still do.

White Lightning makes some great products and NO, they didn’t contact me to do this. I did it out of my own love for their lubricants and cleaners. Support your LBS and buy local!