If you are a motorcycle traveler or rider, you must know the basics about how to wash your motorcycle gear. Motorcycle gear is not just the gear on the motor, but it also includes the safety gear, riding gear, specialized clothing and miscellaneous equipment. All of these serves a special purpose and make your motorcycle travelling a safe and amazing experience.
Whenever you go to the workshops for maintenance of your motorcycle, they clean and maintain everything on the bike including its motor, gear, chain, and checking tires etc.
But when it comes to wash your motorcycle safety gear such as motorcycle jackets, gloves, seat leather or helmet, you must use special care. Washing the motorcycle safety gear is very important as it saves you from a number of issues and make you germ-protected. This is because most of the germs grow inside the apparel e.g. jackets or gloves and attack on us.
Furthermore, the excessive use of motorcycle gears makes them dull and dirty. Sometimes, due to our body’s sweating, the motorcycle gears may start giving a stinging smell. Therefore, it is very important to carefully go through all the steps to properly wash your motorcycle gear. These steps are as follows:
Before Washing
Before washing your motorcycle gear, it is highly recommended to empty the pockets, unzip any linings, and turn the inner side out. The purpose of turning the inner side out is that the inner side is sometimes creating the stinging smell due to body’s perspiration and sweating.
However, if inner side is not that messy than the outer side, then make sure you keep the outer side at the front. Turn the sides of the gloves so that they can be washed properly from the inside too. After that, proceed to the next step which is washing.
Hand Washing
In order to wash your motorcycle gears, always prefer the hand washing over machine washing. The major reason behind it is that the machine washing may affect the appearance of your gear. It may be hard on your motorcycle gear and could damage the soft leather material due to its fast spinning technology. Usually the motorcycle gear comes in the leather form, so special care is needed to wash them.
However, if your motorcycle gears are not in the leather material, then you may consider washing them in the washing machine. Whenever you go for using washing machine, make sure that you set the hand-wash manual settings. In the hand-wash manual, the machines wash the clothes in a careful and relatively slow manner as if we are washing them with hands. This hand-wash technology is common in latest washing machines where you can select the option of hand-wash among a number of options.
Another important thing to remember during the process of washing your motorcycle gear is the use of slightly warm water. This is because a slightly warm water has the tendency to soften all the dirt, oil and soil particles from the gear. If you would use the cold water, it would fail to meet the purpose of properly cleaning the motorcycle gear. The end results would not be satisfying if the cold water is used. However, a slightly warm water assists in deep cleaning and removing all the stains and dirt.
Detergents
For washing your motorcycle gear, it is very important that you take special care in choosing the detergents. Always use a good brand detergent that can effectively clean your motorcycle gear. There are many types of detergents into the market, some of which affects the colors of the clothes.
They have some sharp activators that are harsh on the delicate clothes. Such types of detergents should be avoided for washing the motorcycle gear. Always choose a detergent whose PH level is around 7 or close to 7. These are natural and not highly acidic or alkaline.
Along with using detergents, also use some good-brand fabric softener that acts to maintain the softness of your motorcycle jacket, and gloves etc. After washing, properly drain all the detergent from the gear and ensure that there is no residue left.
Drying
In the end, you need to dry the motorcycle gear in a proper way. There are basically two ways to do this. The first one is to make them dry in the spinner part of the washing machine. However, the other method is to hang the motorcycle gears into the fresh air and let the air pass through them to make them drier.
However, avoid drying them directly into the sun light because the dangerous ultraviolet rays harm the texture and fade the colors or the gears. If you prefer to make them dry in an open place, make sure you hang them under a shade where sun light is not directly coming. In this way, you can properly wash and clean your motorcycle gear.
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