What does Muc Off actually do?

on-yer-bike

and other bike washing products?

sloppyschleckonds

Get yer bike covered in shite and try something else....

chrisaonabike

on-yer-bike wrote:

and other bike washing products?

Same thing as Fairy Liquid does in the sink.

imposter2.0

on-yer-bike wrote:

and other bike washing products?

Let's try and work it out. 'Muc Off' - is a contraction of 'muck off'. So, let's assume it cleans your bike. Much like a detergent - because it is a detergent. Might be worth googling 'detergent' for more info.

Manc33

Apart from slightly stinging your hands where you have thinner skin and smelling like mustard gas, its great stuff.

It does seem to work, no elbow grease, just spray on, leave 5 mins and just rinse off. Even though it stings your hands slightly they say its safe to use on carbon parts.

As with anything water based, just don't get it anywhere near your chain.

if you really want to get metal parts clean, that MAAS stuff does it. Make silver hubs look brand new again but it ain't cheap - £8 for a kids toothpaste tube sized tube of it (1 Oz). Its like Brasso/T-Cut but better.

imposter2.0

Incidentally - 5 litres of Muc Off will cost you around £20-22. 25 litres of non-caustic TFR will cost you £15-18 from most good motor factors. Dilute at 4:1 to make around 100 litres of bike cleaner.

antsmithmk

Sound advise above. I have a 20 litre tub of motorbike citrus degrease which I dilute at 1:25 for home made muck off and use neat on the chain with a small brush. Cost me £20 and will last forever!

florerider

Actually it eats carbon fibre.

imposter2.0

florerider wrote:

Actually it eats carbon fibre.

really?

florerider

Imposter wrote:

florerider wrote:

Actually it eats carbon fibre.

really?

No, but it does on the internet

imposter2.0

Phew, that's a relief. As we know, CF is susceptible to attack from almost any substance on the internet...

on-yer-bike

Yeah, yeah love the wise cracks. The reason I ask is it doesnt make any difference if I use it or just use plain water, the dirt washes off the same. Anything stubborn still needs baby wipes or lighter fluid. If Muc Off is just diluted degreaser Id rather not use it.

Manc33

You find out what carbon fiber is about when you hacksaw it. I went through 2.5 blades cutting a fork steerer. :shock: If this stuff wasn't reverse engineered from a crashed UFO we're doing so well.

Yes everyone does say that citrus degreaser works. I got 5L of Muc-Off for about £15, can't remember where it was that price but I remember hunting a lot.

handful

£16 currently at a certain retailer that always gets the blame.

supermurph09

I really don't think you need any of these type of cleaners. I used to use them all the time then someone on here mentioned baby wipes so I just use those now. I use morgan blue with a park tools chain cleaner to clean drive drain and use the wipes to clean everything else. Lube on the chain and a bit on the moving parts and I'm done. Never had any issues, everything that moves, moves like it should, everything that needs to be clean is clean. 8)

ugo.santalucia

Have you all gone bonkers?
Washing up liquid is about a pound... a few drops in warm water and a sponge is all you need. 20 quid for a bit of detergent? I mean, how much do you spend for a shower gel or a shampoo? Be real FFS! :shock:

Bozman

ugo.santalucia wrote:

Have you all gone bonkers?
Washing up liquid is about a pound... a few drops in warm water and a sponge is all you need. 20 quid for a bit of detergent? I mean, how much do you spend for a shower gel or a shampoo? Be real FFS! :shock:

Spot on

darkhairedlord

Just strip it down and shove it in the dishwasher

matt-h

darkhairedlord wrote:

Just strip it down and shove it in the dishwasher

oh how you mock.
i did this with some interior parts for a restoration




Mrs was less than impressed

Matt

Joeblack

I'll tell you where I sit on this subject,

I'm a insane clean freak when it comes to anything like this, I take cleaning my car to a whole other lever for example (see detailingworld.com for that level) and have learnt over time that there are some products worth the extra money and some that are just rebranded generic versions of another.

With the car for example I fine a good tyre shine (CGNLTG) is worth the investment, you only need a small amount and it lasts forever on the tires. Then there's leather cleaner for the seats, you can pay stupid amounts of money for the latest leather cleaner but iv always used the same thing (I'll get to that later) and it's always given a great result for next to no cost.

With regards to the muc off stuff when I bought my latest bike I got a free pack with some of the cleaner and de-greaser and polish in as well as some sponges and bits, previous to this iv always used a APC that we use for pretty much everything in our house including those leather seats I mentioned earlier, it's blue it cleans great and it smells good, you just have to alter the dilution rate drowning on what you're cleaning. I get this from a janitorial company along with a degreaser called Lift, no other degreaser iv used can touch Lift, both come in huge tubs for under a tenner and last forever once diluted. So in short get you're self a decent APC and it will do a multitude of jobs around the bike (and house&scar) as with a degreaser don't bother with Muc off.

I will however say the bike polish I got (black spray can) from Muc off is really good, easy to use and genuinely leave a lovely finish on Matt black, it also makes the bike easier to clean due to leaving a protective film that dirt can't cling to.

.....Not that I ever get my bike dirty

imposter2.0

Manc33 wrote:

You find out what carbon fiber is about when you hacksaw it. I went through 2.5 blades cutting a fork steerer.

Really? I've been using the same old hacksaw blade for years...it's been through loads of carbon steers in that time..

antsmithmk

ugo.santalucia wrote:

Have you all gone bonkers?
Washing up liquid is about a pound... a few drops in warm water and a sponge is all you need. 20 quid for a bit of detergent? I mean, how much do you spend for a shower gel or a shampoo? Be real FFS! :shock:

If you did the maths, you would pay £40 for 20 litres of washing up liquid.... versus my suggestion of £20 for degreaser which would end up making 100 litres....

Still, be real, FFS and all that

ugo.santalucia

antsmithmk wrote:

ugo.santalucia wrote:

Have you all gone bonkers?
Washing up liquid is about a pound... a few drops in warm water and a sponge is all you need. 20 quid for a bit of detergent? I mean, how much do you spend for a shower gel or a shampoo? Be real FFS! :shock:

If you did the maths, you would pay £40 for 20 litres of washing up liquid.... versus my suggestion of £20 for degreaser which would end up making 100 litres....

Still, be real, FFS and all that

But who needs 100 litres of liquid to wash the bike? You need to be a serious hoarder to keep that kind of stock...
It's probably the same folks who buy 2 pairs of Zonda when on offer, even if they don't need them, so they have wheels for the years to come...

antsmithmk

It's not 100 litres in concentrate form though is it. Just a demijohn sized bottle in the garage.

ugo.santalucia

antsmithmk wrote:

It's not 100 litres in concentrate form though is it. Just a demijohn sized bottle in the garage.

Fair enough, but I won't "invest" 20 quid to future proof the washing of my bike for the next decade. I use what I've got, often is the leftover liquid which only comes off the plastic bottle if you chuck water in and shake... and that can be washing up liquid or shampoo, it's what needs to be finished... I don't think I have purposely ever spent a pound to wash my bike... sponges are those that are no longer good for dishes... same applies to oil. I have used the oil that was around, over the past two years it's been the leftovers from a can of diesel engine oil that I had to buy in Italy as it was running low. Rags are clothes that we no longer wear and too ratty for the charity shop.

There is an all industry of parasites making money selling you stuff which is completely unnecessary. The chain cleaner with rolling brushes never stops amusing me.

antsmithmk

I agree about the mark up on goods.... I have used muc off in the past and now can see what a mug I was! Far better to make your own or use cheaper stuff.

MrSweary

I quite like their chain cleaner and their bike spray. I wouldn't pay for the bike cleaner though. I strongly suspect I clean my chain far more often than necessary. Using a wet ceramic lube recently seems to have increased the resilience though.

As for cleaning I use baby wipes to get the worst off the frame followed by a quick spray of some generic lube on the cable contact points and a wipe down with an oily rag. To be honest it is a 5 minute job.

Of course my bike is alu so I don't have to worry about cleaning products melting the frame....

chris_bass

antsmithmk wrote:

It's not 100 litres in concentrate form though is it. Just a demijohn sized bottle in the garage.

antsmithmk wrote:

If you did the maths, you would pay £40 for 20 litres of washing up liquid.... versus my suggestion of £20 for degreaser which would end up making 100 litres....

Still, be real, FFS and all that

but 20 litres of washing up liquid would make way more than 100 litres of soapy water, you aren't really comparing them fairly (or should I say fairy?!)

Unless you use a whole bottle of washing up liquid with a pint of hot water?

morstar

Joeblack wrote:

I'll tell you where I sit on this subject,

I'm a insane clean freak when it comes to anything like this, I take cleaning my car to a whole other lever for example (see detailingworld.com for that level) and have learnt over time that there are some products worth the extra money and some that are just rebranded generic versions of another.

With the car for example I fine a good tyre shine (CGNLTG) is worth the investment, you only need a small amount and it lasts forever on the tires. Then there's leather cleaner for the seats, you can pay stupid amounts of money for the latest leather cleaner but iv always used the same thing (I'll get to that later) and it's always given a great result for next to no cost.

With regards to the muc off stuff when I bought my latest bike I got a free pack with some of the cleaner and de-greaser and polish in as well as some sponges and bits, previous to this iv always used a APC that we use for pretty much everything in our house including those leather seats I mentioned earlier, it's blue it cleans great and it smells good, you just have to alter the dilution rate drowning on what you're cleaning. I get this from a janitorial company along with a degreaser called Lift, no other degreaser iv used can touch Lift, both come in huge tubs for under a tenner and last forever once diluted. So in short get you're self a decent APC and it will do a multitude of jobs around the bike (and house&scar) as with a degreaser don't bother with Muc off.

I will however say the bike polish I got (black spray can) from Muc off is really good, easy to use and genuinely leave a lovely finish on Matt black, it also makes the bike easier to clean due to leaving a protective film that dirt can't cling to.

.....Not that I ever get my bike dirty

This is an absolute gem of a post and why I love the forum.

Essentially, you and I are worlds apart so I have genuinely learnt some good tips from this post when it does come to cleaning stuff. It's just that it will be far further in the future than for yourself.

bompington

Are you all seriously trying to say that we're supposed to clean our bikes? Is this where I've been going wrong all these years?

antsmithmk

Chris Bass wrote:

antsmithmk wrote:

It's not 100 litres in concentrate form though is it. Just a demijohn sized bottle in the garage.

antsmithmk wrote:

If you did the maths, you would pay £40 for 20 litres of washing up liquid.... versus my suggestion of £20 for degreaser which would end up making 100 litres....

Still, be real, FFS and all that

but 20 litres of washing up liquid would make way more than 100 litres of soapy water, you aren't really comparing them fairly (or should I say fairy?!)

Unless you use a whole bottle of washing up liquid with a pint of hot water?

Ok I get what your saying

Enough on this, more riding less domestic science talk