I spent 2.5 hours cleaning my bicycle today. Well, the last time I did it was for the 70.3, and I spent 3 hours for that one. Probably cos i didn't lube the cables and fiddle with aerobar today bah, hence the 0.5 hours discrepancy.

Anyway, I'm taking WAY too long to clean my bike. How can every cleaning take close to 3 hours? It's just ridiculous.... I'm going to spend some time to find out the most efficient way of cleaning from Passion Bikes.

Hmm, so what exactly goes on during the 3 hours?
1. Remove accesories which I would not want to get wet. Easily done.
2. Hose down the bike to get rid of sand/mud. I have to do this down stairs. 5 mins cos must undo the hose and put it back after use.
3. Use towel or paper to wipe away every square inch of the bike. Now this takes some time because I have to stick my fingers into every nook and crany (how do you spell it...), such as under the bottom bracket, inside the derailleur, between the fork, between the moving parts of the cranks... the reverside of the crank, the pedals, under the saddle, etc etc etc...
I also have to degrease the drivetrain (crankset, chain, jockey wheels, cassette). Normally a degreaser such as kerosene can be used, but I ran out... So today I skipped this step and just wiped the chain as dry and grime free as possible.
For the parts between the frame and the wheels, such as the brakes, chainstay/seatstays and behind the seattube, I have to carefully remove the wheels and lay the frame down, so that I can access the parts between frameset/fork and wheels.
4. Ok, and I have to clean the wheels, which means wiping the rims clean, as well as each and every spoke....
5. I have to use my tools to remove the cassette on the rear wheel to clean each sproket individually
6. I removed my training tires and slapped on my Michelin ProRace 2 race tires.
7. I assembled the whole damn thing.
8. I now start lubing the chain, and testing the shifting at the same time. Shifting adjustment usually only requires a simple turn of a know to increase the tension. Lubing the chain involves dripping singer oil onto every joint on the chain, then wiping the chain down an insane number of times until I think the chain is sufficiently dry. You only want the lube on the parts between the metal rollers of the chain... Not on the outside of the chain as that attracts dust and grime.
As for how troublesime this is, just ask any army guy how long it takes to pull through an oily (not dry) rifle barrel until it's clean........
9. I pack up the mess I've created, throwing away the used paper / cloth, keeping my tools.
10. I fully inflate the tires to 120 psi and chuck my bike aside and go and wash my greasy hands and go for a drink.

Phew.

Ok, an interesting observation I made was about the inflating an deflating of tires. Assuming ideal gas law, and knowing that the volume V of my tires are fixed (negligible stretch lah)

PV = nRT

Initially P = 14.969 psi = 1 atm, T = 25 C = 297 K

I pump my tires to 120 psi, which is about 8 times the inital.
Therefore n*T must increase 8 times. Well, apparently most of this pressure increase comes from the introduction of more molecules of air (ie n increase)... if not I would have tires at 2384K... haha.

This also means that if I can't find my pump, I just need to heat up my tires to 2384 K and I'm ready to ride =)