Faced with the daunting task of cleaning what seemed to be half of the Australian continent off my lovely, once white and silver, Road King I decided to look for options. Surely there was someone who made a living cleaning busy (aka lazy) people's bikes for them, let's call it detailing. I decided to go to the local dealer and ask.
It so happened it was Metal Mayhem at the dealership, people were everywhere lined up for a ride of one of the new 2010 models but I managed a quick chat with the salesman who sold me my Road King who took the question to the top. The dealer principal suggested that if my next service was close he could arrange a clean at the same time. I suggested that perhaps he could arrange the clean in the absence of a service and we spoke about a rate for 3 hours. So at the very least it can happen, but it seems in the absence of that specific arrangement it's a "wash it yourself" prospect. I booked it in for the following Wednesday.
Unfortunately, when I arrived home there was significant interest in tomorrow's Newcastle Bikers 4 Kids Toy Run, which left me in a significant dilemma. There was no way I could take the Harley out in public looking like it did. I decided to bite the bullet and ask for some assistance from the two older kids, one of whom actually contributed to the grime by coming on the trip. Despite the offer of a seemingly significant amount of cash for their "help", wash it yourself was their implied response followed by some potty mouthed, frustrated retorts on my part.
So there I was, couldn't ride it dirty, had to ride it tomorrow and my only option to get stuck into it. So out came the pressure washer which had no impact at all on the two weeks of road grime with some truck time added to it and a few hot days along the way to bake it all on.
Four hours later, five microfibre cloths, two buckets of warm water and turtle wax, half a bottle of Polyglaze bug and tar remover, 15 minutes with the compressor blowing water off it followed by some chamois dabbing it was washed and I'd guess about 80% of the trip was gone. The rest was going to wait until next time and I wasn't going to polish until next year!
So now it's done and tomorrow's fund raiser a possibility if the weather permits. If there's a sniff of rain though, I'm staying home and keeping it clean.
