The laziest cyclist in the world? Possibly. After every ride for the last couple of weeks, through rain, general road muck and at least three types of animal 'detritus', I've been getting home and just throwing my bike in the shed. Come the next day, I'll give the tires a kick, test the brakes and set off without a care for my groaning ride.
Beginning to look far older than its years, the bike was developing frown lines, grey hairs and a chain with more crud than metal, with one, easily predictable end result. It was just getting harder to turn the pedals.
After stalling for ages I finally dug out the bottle of bike cleaner, grabbed my toothbrush and went to work.
An hour later, I've coaxed all the gunk off the bike (distributing it pretty evenly on to me in the process) and my bike looks like it belongs to someone that cares about it again (while I now look pretty unloved). Obvious as it may sound, a clean chain runs a hell of a lot easier than a grungy one.
Moral? Love your bike and it'll love you right back.
