We’ve known the crew at We Move Bikes for years now, because they are the people who look after Harley’s press fleet and handle their logistics, so when they invited us to test some cleaning products that they have had developed, we jumped at the chance.
We know that they have a very demanding requirement, and have formulated their own cleaning products, having given up trying to find something that meets it.
They are the poor sods who have to clean up after us, because it’s not all riding bikes in the sunshine, stopping in stunning locations to take photographs and popping into country inns to partake of their fare.
It mainly is, obviously, but not all the time.
Even when we do bring bikes back clean, that won’t be clean enough for the next journalist so they still have to wash them, and over-washing causes its own problems.
And that means every press bike plus every demo bike that comes off one of their curtainsiders at Harley events, plus all manner of Harley’s internal requirements.
Motorcycle Wash
WMB wanted something that they could use frequently, that worked, and that continued to protect after it has been washed off.
And we had the perfect opportunity to put it through its paces with the Freewheeler, because there’s a lot of bodywork to keep clean and we have had a lot of liquid sunshine this summer.
Full disclosure: I hate washing bikes and always have, even if it does give you a much better understanding of how they’ve been put together, because it’s a waste of riding time. My biggest gripe is that it’s best to do it when you get home at night, having just ridden through rain and cold and you just want to sit back in dry clothes, the only nearby liquid being in a glass in your hand.
On the positive side, you’re still wearing waterproofs.
So, I want it to be as painless as possible. It is.
Having made sure that the bike is all wet, either dilute Motorcycle Wash 9:1 with water and apply it with sponge or brush, or else spray it from the bottle.
Leave it for a couple of minutes – work it in if necessary, for dead bugs or heavy soiling – and then hose it off.
No big surprises.
Except having wet the bike with a low pressure jet wash on spray, I rinse it off with the same and while I’m familiar with the suds from the cleaner dissipating with a casual rinse – if they’ve survived any agitation – Motorcycle Wash lathers as you rinse it.
And having rinsed it, give it another go, and it lathers again. And again.
That’s when you realise it was clean, with no trace of lather after the first rinse, and that all you are doing is rinsing off residual layers that are designed to leave behind to protect the finish, and provide a showroom shine.
It goes without saying that it is non-corrosive, and it leaves a genuine smear-free finish that polishes up with a microfibre cloth.
Motorcycle Shine
If you want an additional level of shine, combined with an anti-static surface that repels dirt and dust, Motorcycle Shine will keep that finish for longer.
Silicon-free, it can be used on all painted surfaces, plastics, chrome and stainless steel, but must not be used on brakes, hand grips or pedals/footrests for obvious reasons.
Spray on, remove any excess, polish to a shine. Simple.
Reviver:
WMB’s first product not to be prefixed by ‘Motorcycle’ and that’s because it’s for your gear. As well as looking after the bikes, WMB look after the riding gear that demo-riders use when taking bikes out, and this needs keeping fresh too.
And just as you don’t want to face the body odours from the last person to wear that riding kit – especially in hot countries – you will know that your own gear needs freshening up occasionally.
I’m talking about non-removable helmet linings, boots, gloves and that brilliant jacket you’ve got that keeps the cold out, but wasn’t the best choice on that mid-June day that constituted the summer of 2018.
That day, I was in a beer garden with the Indian Owners Club, wearing the same gear that climbed up to the Punks’ Peak Hill Clim in Spain twenty-four hours earlier, ridden across France overnight in and which, by the time I got home, would have been wearing for more than thirty-six hours straight. And in sunshine that had heated up a tin of energy drink – bought in Biarritz and stowed in an outer pocket of my luggage – to the temperature of ten minute old coffee between Folkestone and Kings Norton!
On getting home, I had the presence of mind to spray the Lindstrands Drizzle boots, RSD Diesel gloves and Clash jacket, Rokker Revolution jeans and both of the helmets that I had taken before losing consciousness on the sofa. And then I put the same kit back on the following day to show how good modern riding gear is, and took the Chieftain Limited out on just an unseasonably hot day.
And it all smelled fresh: not new but clean and nothing like it had smelled when I pulled my overheated self out of them little more than twelve hours previously.
The common term these days is to say that it eliminates odours and that’s a fair description: it doesn’t mask smells, it removes them. And it hasn’t yet stained anything that I’ve applied it to, which is all I could have asked of it.