Renew Powerwash System and
Blaster Sidekick Motorcycle Dryer Package
Clean Cycle Products
$99.95 for the package; $34.95 for the Powerwash System separately
www.cleancycle.com
As their name would suggest, Clean Cycle Products is in the business of producing cleaning supplies and tools designed specifically with your dirty hog in mind. Their collection of products devoted to washing and detailing bikes is extensive, to say the least, consisting of specialized brushes, cleaning cloths, chemicals and implements; in a word, they’re a bunch of clean-freaks.
But there’s more to it than that; they’re clean-freaks who don’t think people should have to spend a lot of time on the task of sanitizing their scooters. The perfect example of that philosophy is the Renew Powerwash System, which consists of a quart of the company’s Renew Custom Cycle Wash, and a spray nozzle for applying and rinsing the stuff off. The procedure is ridiculously simple even while being remarkably fast and effective. For starters, you can say goodbye to your wash bucket forever. It’s replaced by the system’s Powerwash nozzle—a serious piece of equipment with some real heft in your hand and smoothness of operation and adjustment, and one that’s built to last. It has a soap reservoir that’s fine-threaded and turns the supply of cleaner fed into the nozzle’s stream off and on with a quick twist.
The drill is simple: just fill the reservoir, turn it to the on position, adjust the nozzle to a jet of water and begin blasting away at your filthy beast. That’s all the effort required to remove most grime, and for really stubborn spots a quick wipe with a cloth gets the job done. Once the bike’s all sudsed up, you let it sit for a minute or two, turn off the soap reservoir, adjust the nozzle to shower and give the bike a good rinsing. The Renew wash minimizes water spotting, so just this short procedure is sufficient for a lick-and-a-promise cleaning job to get you out on the road and feeling squeaky immediately.
For a more thorough job, and to dispel excess water that pools in the various nooks and crannies of the machine, a good drying of the bike is called for, and that undertaking is where the Blaster Sidekick (manufactured by the Metropolitan Vacuum Cleaner Company) proves a small marvel.
This thing does, indeed, have a real kick. Flip the switch and the dryer literally jumps in your hand, so powerful is the output of air, and that air is filtered and warmed up about 20 degrees hotter than the air going in. It’s a weapon against water collected in the motor fins, around the mounts, down in the lifter block recesses and all those other troublesome areas. It comes with a pair of additional tips for increasing the force of the blast and giving it more focus for the area being dried. For expanses of bodywork—tank, fenders and side covers—it’s still handy to have a chamois for a quick wipe of the big drops before finishing off with that warm blast of filtered air.
It’s always gratifying when a product performs as advertised. In the case of this system, the company claims a reduction in cleaning and drying time of 75 percent, and while we never actually tracked our time with the old bucket, sponge, chamois and workshop air compressor approach to achieving the same results, we can say confidently that what was once a real chore is now a real breeze. We actually leave the nozzle on the garden hose permanently now, since it’s a superior unit for general use around the yard, and when it’s time to give the bike (or the car, for that matter) a bath, it’s a matter of merely turning on the soap dispenser and having at it.
