Finish Line Super Bike Wash

Like washing liquids, which are always NEW! and IMROVED! promising AMAZING PERFORMANCE! bike cleaning products tap into our desire for products that will magically take care of mundane chores.

This cleaning liquid from Finish Line bills itself as ‘The fast and easy cleaner. Spray on – wipe or rinse off’ which rather raises hopes that all a chap has to do is spray it on and rinse off the grime in one fell swoop. Sadly, it doesn’t quite work as well as that. It’s easy enough to use, simply wet your bike, spray on the wash, leave it to work its magic for a few minutes and rinse off. The instructions tell you to either wipe it off with a towel or, for ‘stubborn soils’ agitate it with a soft brush or rag. That’s fair enough, but it comes perilously close to the ‘works as part of a calorie controlled diet’ smallprint that you get on low calorie cakes. Agitating the dirt with a brush dipped in hot soapy water will work just as well.

We used the cleaner on our commuter bikes, which were heavily soiled with oily spray and caked on mud from winter puddles. While it did help shift muck on the frame (aided and abetted by some elbow grease and a brush) a grimy chainset and cassette were beyond its powers.

It comes in a 1ltr bottle with a spray nozzle and is safe for use on pretty much any part of your bike. It’s fully biodegradable too.

At £12.71 for a litre it’s a pretty expensive way of getting your bike clean, you can get a litre of car shampoo for less than half of that. It’s not an especially bad product, it just promises more than it can actually deliver.