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Squirt Bike Cleaner Concentrate

9
£16.99

VERDICT:

9
10
Very effective both diluted or neat, and makes absolutely loads of wash
Effective both diluted and neat
Makes 25L of wash
Doesn't smell so nice you want to drink it
Won't kill everything it touches
Weight: 
1,075g
road.cc Recommends

This product has been selected to feature in road.cc recommends. That means it's not just scored well, but we think it stands out as special. Go to road.cc recommends

At road.cc every product is thoroughly tested for as long as it takes to get a proper insight into how well it works. Our reviewers are experienced cyclists that we trust to be objective. While we strive to ensure that opinions expressed are backed up by facts, reviews are by their nature an informed opinion, not a definitive verdict. We don't intentionally try to break anything (except locks) but we do try to look for weak points in any design. The overall score is not just an average of the other scores: it reflects both a product's function and value – with value determined by how a product compares with items of similar spec, quality, and price.

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Squirt Biodegradable Bike Cleaner Concentrate works really well both neat as a degreaser and diluted as a general wash. At the recommended maximum dilution of 1:25 it makes a massive 25L of bike wash, so it's great value too.

I tested this on both my road bike and my often slightly minging mountain bike, and it performed really well for everything. It even leaves a slight shine to your paintwork once the bike is dry again.

At one part concentrate to 25 parts water, and misted onto the bike with a spray bottle – this is a refill type affair so you'll need your own – this has an immediate effect.

The bottom of the down tube on my fluorescent yellow mountain bike is always dotted with what can only be road tar, so as a test I sprayed half with Squirt and the other half with water. Then I rubbed at it with just my fingers (I even used different fingers to avoid cross-contamination because SCIENCE). I could rub away the stubborn little speckles quite easily with the wash, whereas they mostly ignored my efforts on the watered section. I was impressed, especially given the dilution.

More generally, a good spray over the bike (already wet or not, it doesn't seem to make a difference) and a shuffle around with a sponge was all it took to unstick dirt and grime ready for the hose. A quick blast with that and the grunge all just falls off, and as this is water-based and biodegradable there's no need to worry about killing our world any quicker than we already are.

I found its performance as good as any out there, even though I ignored the instructions (in a nutshell, 'be patient') and got straight in there to see what was happening. If you do want more power, there's plenty of scope for diluting it less while still getting good mileage from the bottle.

Used neat it's effective even on quite blackened drivetrains and thickly gunked jockey wheels. Dribbling it straight on (it's pleasingly gloopy so doesn't all just run straight off) won't simply melt it away like solvent degreasers, but after 10 or 20 seconds even thick rinds of stuck-on lube fall away easily with a soft brush.

I found it worked well to pour a little into the brush and then scrub everything – chain, cassette and chainrings – by spinning the cranks for 30 seconds or so. After that, a blast of hose water again saw all that grime just rinse away to reveal a sparkly chain and clean sprockets. Very satisfying.

Okay, I'm not the ultra-fastidious type who needs everything surgically sterile and will employ toothpicks and microscopes to get there, and if you are you may still prefer solvent-based aerosols. But this works as well as any water-based cleaner I've tried, including my longterm favourite, Fenwick's FS-10.

Value

At the recommended dilution this makes 25L of bike wash, and at £16.99 for this bottle that would be 68p per litre – which is pretty cheap. By contrast, a 1L bottle of Peaty's Loam Foam concentrate costs £19.99 and only makes 5L of wash (£4 per litre).

One litre of Decathlon's Concentrated Bike Cleaner also makes 5L of wash, and costs £6.99 - or £1.40 per litre.

Overall

This stuff is great, and noticeably effective even at its highest dilution. Used neat it's a really useful degreaser, too. Oh, and it's biodegradable, won't leave your lungs looking like wind-shredded flags and it's cheap. Winner.

Verdict

Very effective both diluted or neat, and makes absolutely loads of wash

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road.cc test report

Make and model: Squirt Bike Cleaner Concentrate

Size tested: 1 Litre

Tell us what the product is for and who it's aimed at. What do the manufacturers say about it? How does that compare to your own feelings about it?

Squirt says: "Squirt Bike Cleaner is a concentrated & biodegradable bicycle cleaner. The concentrate can be diluted to 1:25 and still produce a heavy-duty cleaning solution. It is water based and does not contain any organic solvents."

Tell us some more about the technical aspects of the product?

From Squirt:

Sodium Gluconate

Sodium Lauryl Sulphate

Sodium Lauryl Ether Sulphate

C9-C11 Proprietary Blend

Lauramine Oxide

Cocamidopropyl Betaine

Sodium Metasilicate

Water

Rate the product for performance:
 
9/10
Rate the product for value:
 
8/10

Makes 25L of effective bike wash.

Tell us how the product performed overall when used for its designed purpose

Very well – it's effective both neat as a degreaser and watered down as a general wash.

Tell us what you particularly liked about the product

Leaves a slight but pleasing shine.

Tell us what you particularly disliked about the product

Nothing.

How does the price compare to that of similar products in the market, including ones recently tested on road.cc?

It's cheap. At the recommended dilution this makes 25L of bike wash, and at £16.99 for this bottle that would be 68p per litre – which is pretty cheap. By contrast, a 1L bottle of Peaty's Loam Foam concentrate costs £19.99 and only makes 5L of wash (£4 per litre).

One litre of Decathlon's Concentrated Bike Cleaner also makes 5L of wash, and costs £6.99 – or £1.40 per litre.

Did you enjoy using the product? Yes

Would you consider buying the product? Yes

Would you recommend the product to a friend? Yes

Use this box to explain your overall score

This works very well, is non-toxic and is cheap.

Overall rating: 9/10

About the tester

Age: 48  Height: 183cm  Weight: 78kg

I usually ride: Vitus Zenium SL VR Disc  My best bike is:

I've been riding for: 10-20 years  I ride: A few times a week  I would class myself as: Experienced

I regularly do the following types of riding: general fitness riding, mtb,

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