Stateguy if you’re washing salt off a fat bike, that describes a winter scenario, so a lot of the advice above is probably not practical unless you have a particularly suited facility to work in. For example, up until I sold my business last year, I had a heated warehouse with a truck bay, floor drain, hose and equipment at my disposal anytime, so that was deluxe.

Last winter I had to re-adapt my cleaning regimen of 12 years to an unheated home garage scenario. I’ve been using a wash/rinse program with a hand-pressurized, 1gal. garden sprayer. First I fill the sprayer with warm water and rinse down the bike, getting the big dirt off. I then use a little car wash— I like a shampoo with ceramic component— in a bucket with a brush (or rag) to hand wash the bike, followed by a spray down rinse, and a detailer spray and a towel dry to finish.

The nice thing a out the garden sprayer is that it’s very parsimonious with the water, so I can use it in the garage without getting everything wet or worrying about runoff freezing on the driveway. Its got a little pressure to knock stuff loose, and the tiny wand head lets me work around the bike very precisely using only as much water as needed.

Really, it works great, so much so that I found myself using the sprayer this summer even though I have just as ready access to garden hoses with sprayer heads and an electric pressure washer, too. It’s just so easy and efficient, although admittedly doesn’t develop enough pressure to really blast out gummed-up cassettes. A $20 Park Tool cleaning kit with the cassette scraper is a charm tool for that, and just for general cleaning, too.

Lastly, a propane heater for my garage was a smart addition to the arsenal, making winter chores like that much less burdensome.