Just wanting to get the first post in the new folder, thought I'd ask if anyone has one of those chain-cleaners? Are they worth £20, plus regular amounts for cleaning fluid, as I'm a lazy bugger and much prefer having machines do my work for me.

ta

nbt

Cleaned my chain last week - had this really poor chain cleaning thing that broke within 2 minutes (but everything i own seems to be breaking recently).

To be honest i much prefer the old Toothbrush and cleaning fluid/GT85 combo.

Nick

Mine worked ok for a while but the brushes are pretty dead now. It was one of the 3 wheely-brush things. The cleaning fluid is just degreaser.

I usually use it to get the worst off still, (gets rid of the really mucky bit of the job) and use a toothbrush to get it nice and clean.

NBT, remind me when you arrive and you may borrow my chain cleaner with pleasure. Got it from the shop of 'eternal bad demo bikes' for £13:00 (no discount allowed on that purchase either). Oh, I haven't got any cleaning fluid at the moment but I normally only use muc off anyway. Damn site less finicky than taking the chain off every time it needs cleaning.

Got the Park Tool one which is pretty good, lot less messy than toothbrush option - chain comes out clean too. Recommended.

i just rip the chain of and put it in a 2l coke bottle half full with oil (and meths, degreaser, gt85, weldtite lube, probably some disc cleaner) any old crap really and shake it a bit, it just managed to revive a chain that had rusted solid, it now works fine.

I've tried Park, Halfords(branded) and a strange long Italian thing, the Park was useless, the Italian thing was really fiddly but the Halfords really works well except when you drop them, they then always loose an important corner!The weird thing about the Halfords one is that the cleaning brushes work better when you turn the cranks in a forward direction which is the opposite to the directions that come with it.This means that you have to hold the machine rather than just hook it onto the rear mech..Cleaning chains is certainly easier with it and I do think that it does a very good job. untill Shimano or Rohloff do a quick-link I'll keep using the cleaner, when they do I'kll get an ultra-sonic bath

go to sainsbury's.
buy 2 99p 4 inch wooden scrubbing brushes from where the dusters are.
hold them tight together so fuurry bits face each other over chain after applying some degreaser or whatever.
rotate pedals with other hand.
spend remaining £13 on beer.

We used to take the chain off - soak in parafin over night then rinse in clean parafin hang to dry. then re oil / grease (on our motorbikes we cooked on the stove with a special grease in a tin) Today it all seems to be dry lubes to prevent picking up the dust and crud. I find the noise of a dirty chain saves me putting batteries in my walkman !

Halfords (& park) really aren't worth bothering with since they don't clean the internal parts of the chain. Only decent solution is removal and petrol/parrafin rinsing.

Jet wash the chain, NB just the chain. That works wonders especially if you are lazy, like me!

i usually wee on mine but it's a bit fidgity trying to wee,spin the cranks and make sure that it does'nt all end up in a big painful tangled mess.oh,and i usually have to drink around four pints of lager beforehand [but i dont see that as a drawback!]. if you get it right it makes bike maintanance great fun, but if you get it wrong it can [will] be sore [and your mates will laugh at you]. p.s, for extra fun try it with an audience.

well Ilike mine - it is the Halfords one too (about a tenner I think). I now use Muc-off in it. The one thing that it could use is the handle like the Park has. It strips down nicely and allows you to clean up (washing up liquid works well). I found I had to experiment with the mounting on the chain - in the endI hooked the holder thing round the back of teh derrailleur arm and pedalled backwards. It does get tye chain nicely clean. For that exra effort, taking it off and soaking in a bottle of Muc-off helps, and then you can stick teh chain cleaner in a vice and rub the chain back and forth, holding each end with a bit of bent spoke. I bit of a fiddle, but it's real redeeming characteristic is that the dirty cleaner stays in the box rather than spraying all over everything else - just takea look at the peripheral mess toothbrush makes!

Don't know why but I thought I'd go back in time and see where it all started.

Haven't things changed?.......

The Halfords one is poor. I broke it within my first 30 seconds of use.

My Halfords chain cleaner is still going strong after 2 years.
I use diesel or paraffin (sometimes petrol) now that the original cleansing fluid has run out.