How To Clean and Lube the Chain

This won’t be news for most of my readers, so…if you want to read it anyway…what you can do with this post is [a] try to guess what bike the above picture is of, and [b] post any other tips you might give to a new citybiker on basic chain maintenance.

Some people really like getting their hands dirty with motorcycle maintenance. I don’t particularly enjoy it, but there are some things you just have to do: and if you have a chain driven motorcycle (which is most motorcycles except BMW’s and some Harley’s) you have to clean and lubricate the chain. The truth is modern o-ring chains hold on to lubrication so well that they really don’t require too much fuss. Nevertheless we want to keep our bikes in top shape, and the only thing that’s more of a pain than cleaning and lubing a chain is replacing one. So here’s a quickie step by step you can do every couple of weeks or (if you’re riding long distances) every thousand miles or so…