SOC14: ProGold Gets Your Chain Bright with new Chain Shine Degreaser

The ONLY way to get a clean chain, and I mean very clean, is to remove the chain and clean it.

I respectfully disagree with Ajax, in spite of his impressive, albeit mythological, pedigree. The Park Cyclone Chain Scrubber can clean a chain absolutely 100%. The trick is to run it with a chain holder, not with a wheel and cassette, and to clean the chainrings simultaneously with the chain, using a toothbrush or similar. Doing this eliminates having dirt continuously transfer from dirty cogs or chainrings onto the chain that the scrubber is attempting to clean.

The second trick is to flush and replace the solvent in the scrubber repeatedly as it becomes dirty. I’m not sure about ProGold’s solvent, but with plain ol’ Simple Green, the solvent will foam as the scrubber’s brushes stir it up. This will eventually penetrate inside the links, flushing out the contaminants. Additionally, the scrubber’s brushes will clean thoroughly and systematically the inside surfaces of the chain plates, which is very difficult to accomplish either by cleaning a chain “pro style” on the bike, or with the chain removed. This will also clean the concave portions of the chainrings as you go, particularly if you shift occasionally from one ring to the other as you run the scrubber. The solvent on the chain will also clean the derailleur pulleys as you go.

You can prove the effectiveness of this method to yourself by running the Park scrubber with nothing but clean water, once you have thoroughly cleaned the chain with solvent (depending on how dirty the drivetrain was to start, this may require multiple cycles of rinsing the scrubber and reloading it with fresh solvent) and rinsed it. The plain H2O will stay clean after running the chain through it. You can quite literally eat off the chain, if your table manners somehow justify the exercise.

Someone tell me why you would ever need to fully degrease a chain with a water based degreaser.

I throw my chain in an ultrasonic cleaner once a week with a bit of dish soap. Works great.

i use citrus based degreaser and put it in a chain cleaning tool thing with a tissue on top (because else your frame is going to be black real quick). im sure it works ok with just a tissue as with this progold product, but the chain cleaning tool is quite a time saver.

i dont replace the degreaser when it gets black that doesnt change anything really. it works extremely well.

i also do clean the cogs and front ring with a tooth brush and the cassette with a sponge – otherwise the chain will catch the grease from there obviously.

the whole cleaning takes about 10min and require removing the rear wheel for the cassette cleaning

i then wash the whole thing with clear water, let it dry and use dry teflon lube (ONLY ON THE CHAIN) and wipe excess as i apply it

again i let it sit then ride.

the dry telfon lube definitely does NOT catch dirt at all and it works for quite a long time

these methods will never be as thorough as removing the chain but its pretty damn close and way quicker

To really clean a chain – II
Remove the chain and use an ultrasonic cleaner with your choice of something green [Dr. Brommer’s soap and water works great], change out the solution until it’s clear, blow dry and/or bake in the sun/oven. You can get relatively cheap ultrasonic cleaners that are used to clean jewelery. IMHO, when you use a degreaser, you have to totally remove the degreaser. Otherwise, the chain lube that is applied after the degreasing… gets degreased.