Cleaning Electric Bike – Step By Step Complete Guide
It’s necessary to maintain the cleanliness of your electric bike. Cleaning your bike will increase its lifespan. Moreover, it guarantees it runs flawlessly each time you use it. Any time of year, your e-bike may and will become dirty. However, your e-bike may become much dirtier more quickly than it generally does during the wetter, darker, and colder months of the year. You could consider cleaning your e-bike after looking at it during this time.
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Short Answer
Cleaning electric bike? It is always best to keep your e-bike clean. In addition to ensuring that you always seem sophisticated wherever your e-bike takes you, maintaining the cleanliness of your e-bike protects the longevity of its functioning components by making sure they’re free of dirt and debris and contributes to your safety.
Standard bikes and e-bikes are not the same. When washing, the motor and battery of the e-bike need special consideration and care. Here’s the complete guide on properly cleaning and caring for your e-bike.
Why Should You Clean Your Electric Bike?
Your e-bike might prematurely shorten the lifespan of its parts by accumulating dirt, particularly in the cooler seasons. Consider the dirt on your e-bike as a grinding paste that gradually destroys the moving components. So, cleaning your electric bike will save the e-bike component from being destroyed.
In addition, over time, corrosion from dried dirt and traffic film will harm your drivetrain and frame. This implies that your e-bike can malfunction when it’s least expected. Additionally, you could have a significant repair price to pay.
Regular cleaning will keep your e-bike operating smoothly and extend the life of its components. You may check for any issues at this time and spare yourself a lot of trouble by giving it a quick clean.
How Should You Clean Your Electric Bike: Process
Follow the below given simple steps to clean your Electric bike;
- Step 1: Firstly, you have to remove the dirt from the tires and wheels of the e-bike using a damp cloth or a brush.
- Step 2: For cleaning the frame of the e-bike, utilize a sponge or wet rag. The underside frame should be necessarily cleaned as it is often forgotten.
- Step 3: You have to drain the soapy water after cleaning off the e-bike. You may clean it off using a sponge, wet rag, or garden hose.
- Step 4: The next step after draining soapy water is to dry your e-bike. You can start this from top to bottom using a dry and clean microfibre or rag.
- Step 5: Now your electric bike looks clean and nice. The next step is the lubrication of the e-bike chain. The purpose of lubrication is to prevent your bike from rusting. Additionally, it facilitates smooth drivetrain operation.
- Step 6: The last step in cleaning an electric bike is to discard the battery of the e-bike. Now you use a dry and clean towel to wipe the contacts on the battery.
What Will You Need For Your Electric Bike’s Cleaning?
You would profit from purchasing a bike stand to thoroughly clean your e-bike. Bike stands are reasonably priced and useful for many different maintenance tasks. Although not necessary, a bike stand results in life being simpler. In addition, if your e-bike has a kickstand, you may utilize it or lean it against a wall. You will be OK if it won’t tip over and you have enough place to move around.
While to prevent the entry of water into an electrical component during the cleaning of electric bikes, the majority of electric bicycles have an adequate IP rating. As a result, you need to be able to keep the bike’s battery configured. To be sure, it’s wise to consult the owner’s handbook for your e-bike.
You will want cleaning supplies once you have located a good place to clean your e-bike. These include a hose or pail of water, a sponge, brushes, soap for cleaning bikes, a degreaser, and brake cleaner. Get some chain lubricant, whether wet or dry depending on the season.
What To Avoid While Cleaning An E-Bike?
You shouldn’t ever utilize a pressure washer on an e-bike, even if most of them have strong IP ratings. It is not possible to use high-pressure water with the e-bike components. Additionally, the washer could push dirt into areas where it shouldn’t be, which would be bad for your e-bike.
A pressure washer should also be avoided as it can drive oil out of the bearings of electric bikes. This is primarily for electric mountain bikes with full suspension. However, if this grease washed away, your bearings may deteriorate rapidly. A low-pressure hose set to a sprinkler setting will work well for rinsing.
Key Tips for Cleaning Electric Bike
While cleaning your electric bikes, keep in mind the following tips.
- Don’t Overuse The Jet Washer
Even while it can be easy to use a jet washer to wash every inch of your e-bike, doing so may harm the electrical parts and seals. If you want to use a jet washer, keep the setting on the lowest pressure and place yourself far from your bike.
Most of the time, a garden hose and spray head will clean the e-bike. However, don’t spray straight into the engine, battery, or other electrical parts.
- Read The Guidelines
You will receive a user handbook for your electric bike that is rather extensive and should include some useful information, such as the best way to clean your electric bike. For instance, it’s essential to check the instructions in advance, even though most manufacturers advise removing the battery before washing.
If you’re still unsure, taking the batteries out is preferable. If at all feasible, you should also take the displays out. Cover permanently fixed displays like Purion or remote controls for e-bike systems with a cloth or film.
- Avoid Using Shampoo Containing Auto Wax Or Washing Liquid
Fairy liquid could be gentle on your hands and perfect for washing the dishes. However, the salt in dishwashing solutions will cause your bike to rust and harm the electrical parts over time.
Similarly, using auto wax shampoo might harm your bike brake system. Use bike-specific shampoos and cleaning solutions whenever possible to prevent harm to the seals and plastics.
- Offset Your E-Bike.
You use water on an electric bike to prevent harm from offsetting your e-bike.
Do Not Touch The E-Bike Brake Disks.
E-bikes have powerful disc brakes, but they may be very quickly damaged.
- The first and most evident damage indicator is the sound that appears when you pull on the lever. You hear a loud whining and screaming sound coming from your brakes.
- The second warning is that your braking performance will decline, and using a heavy touch to the brakes may not even be enough to slow you down, much less stop you completely, which might have deadly results. Typically, you experience one or both of these symptoms after the contamination of the brakes.
Therefore, it is wise to use extreme caution while applying any aerosol-type lubrication on your bike. Additionally, once polluted, reviving your brake pads might not be easy.
Things To Not Clean In E-Bike
E-bikes have several delicate parts. You should keep a few items dry so you don’t get wet. To avoid dirt accumulation, you should instead clean them down with a clean, dry towel. While cleaning your e-bike, take care of the following things.
E-Bike Seat Post
The seat post, which links your saddle to the frame, is where water may enter the frame. Your frame may begin to rust if water remains inside of it.
The Bottom Brackets Of The E-Bike
The bottom bracket is the point on the frame where the cranks attach. Electric motorcycles with a mid-drive motor have their motor at this point, and keeping the internal components dry is important.
The E-Bike Wheel Hub
The core of the wheel, or hub, is where the spokes connect to the rim. This is particularly true if your bike has a motor on the hub.
E-Bike Headset Bearing
The headset bearing is another place where water can enter your bike because it is where your handlebars attach to the frame.
FAQs
How should you clean an electric bike in the winter?
Use a moist cloth to remove any surface dust from the electric bike. Use a brush to remove tougher material, such as dried mud, caked dirt, and sand. This ensures that the electric bike won’t result in excessive dampness that might harm the parts and infrastructure. Before lubricating your chain, always clean it.
Is regular bike cleaning beneficial?
Wash your bike regularly. The recommended period is once per week. You can immediately wash and dry mountain bikes after riding them on trails, in muddy areas, by the sea, or in the rain.
Conclusion
One of your duties as a rider is to clean your electric bike. If you do it correctly, your e-bike will live very long. For optimum functioning, frequent maintenance is also important in addition to cleaning.
After reading this article, everyone is aware of some important instructions regarding the cleaning of electric bikes. Here we briefly discuss the tips for cleaning electric bikes.
