OCT 17, 2022
How to Get Ebike Grease Out of Clothes
Friction has always been a big hurdle in smooth, noiseless, and speedy movement in mountain or Ebike. In every machine part, friction causes wear and tear, and difficult movement, and often becomes the reason to give up the benefits offered by the machine altogether. Places where mechanical parts physically touch each other under load, are most affected by friction. To remedy the friction, either a lubricant or grease is used.
Getting rid of grease stains from the clothes is extremely important for the beauty and integrity of clothes. However, different greases have different modus operandi depending upon the unwanted effects of friction and what needs to be done to remedy these effects. Therefore, getting rid of the grease also depends upon the type of grease that your clothes are stained with. Many times, the friction also causes unwanted heat or in some cases, the grease must be water-resistant. Therefore, the grease of the appropriate temperature and water resistance is used in either case and consequently requires a different kind of grease removal mechanism from the clothes.
Grease is generally an oil lubricant mixed with other additives to make it more viscous than oil. In bikes, there are many parts which can cause friction due to movement, and metal-to-metal contact, and would need grease application.
Similarly, the grease also prevents bike parts from getting snapped off unexpectedly due to rust. If you ride the bike through water, muddy tracks, or bumpy and highly uneven tracks, various moving parts can come under significant stress and simply break down if the grease is not used properly, or otherwise get dirty and over time the rust claws over these parts.
These parts mostly include gears, brake cables, brake joints, motor joints, bracket threads, wheel bearings of the bike, and the centre axle of the bike. Therefore, these are also the places where your clothes can get messy and stained with grease.
There are many kinds of grease which can be used according to the need and function of the bike parts. However, most commonly, a general-purpose grease is used in Ebikes. There are some greases which can resist water, and some are good for heat resistance.
Due to the different functions and nature of the grease, one would need different kinds of liquids, fluids, and laundry detergents to take it out of the clothes. For example, if the grease stuck on clothes is thick and water-resistant, it would need dry cleaning methods. Whereas the grease that is less viscous (thin) can be cleaned out using typical (more pervasive) liquid cleaning methods.
There are numerous methods to properly clean the grease out of clothes. Some of these methods involve liquids and some might work just fine without liquid. So, you should choose appropriately depending upon the article of the clothes, and stain type. You must note here that some of the ingredients could be aggressive, meaning these ingredients may remove the color or break the integrity of the clothes thread if used in excessive amounts, or for a longer period. So, you should be careful with the amounts and application of ingredients in mentioned these methods.
Since grease is mostly not soluble in water, you must always make sure that you have cleaned the excess grease out of the clothes. If the grease is not cleaned out before washing clothes using any of the following methods, the grease will completely mess up the rest of the clothes.
Also, note that each grease stain must be cleaned out individually instead of applying the following methods on the whole clothing article. Otherwise, the clothing article can and most probably will lose color if these methods are implemented on the whole clothing article or any other part of the cloth than the grease-stained part.
Once you have cleaned out the excess grease, try one of the following methods to completely clean the grease out of clothes:
Before using this method, first examine the grease stain. If the grease stain is not dried off, has an oilier characteristic, and contains more darkness, you’re good to go using this method. To wash the clothing article with a grease stain, follow these steps:
i.Dip the stained part in lukewarm water. Keep it dipped in the water for at least 10 minutes
ii.Now pour the appropriate amount of the washing laundry detergent on the stained part of the clothing
iii.Pour a few drops of water, and gently rub the mixture such that the foam builds up
iv.Keep rubbing for a few minutes such that oily parts and most dirt particles are removed
v.Clean off this soapy mixture and dip the clothing article in lukewarm water again for 10 minutes
vi.Repeat ii and iii. This time rub the stained part a little harder so that any grease stuck in the clothing thread is also removed.
vii.Finally, repeat Step i - Step iv, and dry the article afterwards.
Using washing laundry detergent and following the steps mentioned above, will remove most grease stains from most clothing articles. Note that for cloth like denim jeans, dip the articles in the water longer, use more laundry detergent, and rub a little harder than usual. Do the inverse for softer clothing articles.
Sometimes, the grease stains can be a little stubborn. For them, using the following method is recommended.
Oftentimes, the Ebike riders do not realize that their clothes have been grease-stained until they are ready to be washed a long time after. By this time, the grease stain has been dried off. To get rid of this grease stain, a compound washing agent can be used. The compound consists of white vinegar, washing laundry detergent and cornstarch. Once you have these ingredients ready follow the steps:
i.Dip the grease-stained part of the clothing in warm water for 15 minutes
ii.While the clothing is being softened using warm water (Step i), mix the cornstarch with washing laundry detergent in equal amounts, and take out the white vinegar in a small more usable container from the bottle
iii.Apply the dry mixture of cornstarch and washing powder on the wet dried stained part of the clothing.
iv.Use white vinegar in a small amount and start gently rubbing the stained part of the clothing.
v.Since this stain has been dried off, you need to rub it off for approximately 5-8 minutes.
vi.After washing off this compound with water, dip this stained part in white vinegar for 10 minutes
vii.Gently squeeze out the white vinegar and re-apply the compound, rubbing the stained part for 5 minutes.
viii.Now, wash the clothing off, and your dried grease stain will be gone for good.
Note:
Dried grease stains are difficult to get rid of. So, you may need to repeat this method a couple of times in different washing cycles to completely get rid of this stain.
The white vinegar leaves back a stingy smell. Therefore, always completely wash off the clothing article with fragrant washing powder, once you’re happy with the method application mentioned above.
Trying to avoid the grease stain from your bike may require thought-out steps as we list below:
Firstly, you can roll up your trouser or jeans whichever you like to keep clean while riding your bike. This is a preventive measure, which means it should work irrespective of the condition of your bike, or clothes. However, in terms of optics, it is a method not chosen most often.
The most obvious place where your clothes can get stained is the chain. Now granted, the chain is not the most obvious place where the most amount of grease or lubricant is used, the chain is surely the part that uses lubricant and is most exposed in almost all of the Ebike parts. To avoid grease or lubricant stains, you must use a proper and full chain guard.
This chain guard helps in multiple ways with avoiding the grease or lubricant stain from the chain, avoiding getting clothes stuck in the chain (which is also a cause of major Ebike accidents), and at the same time increases the overall beauty and homogeneous style of your Ebike.
When using grease for the moving parts in your Ebike, thicker grease has less chance of staining your clothes. Thick grease in the first place, does not get absorbed in clothes’ threads easily. The stain from this grease can easily be taken out just by wiping with clothes and later with laundry detergent to wash out the oily stain that is left over after wiping the grease.
The last preventive measure that can be taken to avoid grease stains, is to use reasonable amounts of grease. If grease is used in excess, it can quickly turn to lubricant or a thinner grease which is more likely to splash off to your clothes but also gets absorbed into the threads of the clothes making it even more difficult to get out later.
1.Are grease stains permanent?
Different types of grease can be used in moving parts of the Ebike. Grease stains are neither necessarily permanent nor temporary all the time. Most often the grease stains depend upon the time that has passed, its thickness, and use time in the moving part of the Ebike.
The thicker grease does not absorb into the cloth easily, so there are better chances that are stain will not be permanent.
If you leave the grease stain on clothes long enough, they’ll set in and will most probably turn into a permanent stain.
Lastly, the grease that has been used in the moving part for a long time, contains more dirt particles. your best bet is to immediately try to clean it off because this kind of stain has the most chance of turning into a permanent stain.
2.Can you remove a grease stain after drying?
Irrespective of the type of grease, where it is used, or for how long it has been within the moving part of the Ebike, they have the best chances of getting permanent if you leave them to dry. Leaving the stain in the cloth is the worst thing you can do in terms of cleaning it out later. The thicker grease may be taken out of the clothes easily, however, grease stain that is dried, and absorbed in the threads of the cloth will almost become impossible to clean out without using cloth-destructive cleaning methods. Not to forget, such stains even if removed, will also remove any color and defining characteristic of the expensive clothes underneath.
3.Will baking soda bleach clothes?
Baking Soda is a strong agent that can be used for bleaching clothes. The mechanism for bleaching clothes using baking soda, however, is different for different clothes depending upon the delicacy, stain type, available time for cleaning, and most importantly whether the mechanism is tested for said cloth and other parameters such as dry baking soda to be used, compound use, or liquid use for clothes bleaching. In almost all the scenarios, it is recommended to use lighter amounts of baking soda for colored clothes, and stronger compound usage for stronger stains such as dried, old grease stains.
Grease stains can look ugly on clothes even when they are in small quantities or small amounts. It is of great importance to clean them off right away, using one of the methods listed above at the earliest so that the stains don’t get permanent when dried. Sometimes, the degreasing of the bike chain is recommended in preventive methods, which would be even worse than getting grease stains on your clothes. Grease is extremely important for the chain but taking it out altogether can be disastrous. Despite all the available cleaning methods, the best solution to grease stains problems is preventive methods.