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I wanted to get rid of a little of the dirty/oxidized look on the sidewalls of my bike tires, so I went to Checker Auto to get some Armor-All.

I read the side of the bottle, and it says it's not for use on cycle tires.

Makes sense. The stuff is basically lubricant, and a spinning tire might migrate it from the sidewall to the tread.

So is there a tire dressing designed for bikes? Or are the Armor-All people just protecting themselves from people so dumb they'd rub it on the tread?

don't use armourall unless you want to figure out how to get asphault scratches outta your bike.

Sadly there isn't anything that I know of that would be safe to use on cycle tires. Someone else might know of something though.

A bit of topic, but don't use armorall on your seat either.

A friend has a very funny (to me) story about the time he used it on his seat.

DustyJacket wrote:A bit of topic, but don't use armorall on your seat either.

A friend has a very funny (to me) story about the time he used it on his seat.

When you are riding pinion on you buddies RD400 after his girlfriend Armorall;ed his saddle, you discover just how close and personal you can get.

Get a good, stiff nylon brush... a scrub brush intended for washing floors as sold in any supermarket works for me...... and get at it. You can use a little dish soap if you want, but you don't need to, and I don't really like soap around my brakes and tires. Scrub the dodo outta 'em, don't be shy about it.

It's more work, and the tires will be flat black instead of glossy, but I prefer that. Shiny, glossy, chromy really don't do it for me.

If you do happen to like that, the flatness of the tire will help set off any gleam your wheels may have, if that helps any.

DustyJacket wrote:A bit of topic, but don't use armorall on your seat either.

A friend has a very funny (to me) story about the time he used it on his seat.

My less-than-brilliant neighbor used armor-all on his tires AND seat after I'd carefully explained why it was a bad idea. He just couldn't stand to see his pretty bike (which he polished more than he rode) have dull tires.

He rode down the street and executed a wide u-turn (i.e. very little lean) and yelled to me that there was no problem. Then he rode past me to the other end of the street, tried a tighter u-turn and promptly lowsided. Being embarrassed, he quickly picked it up and restarted. Hoping to leave before anyone inquired about his problem, he goose the throttle, popped the clutch and promptly slid off the back of the seat. The bike wobbled for a few feet then fell over again. By the time I reached him, he was getting ready to start it again and attempt to ride back to his garage. I suggested that he'd probably done enough damage for one day, and that I'd help him push it home, where we could attempt to scrub off the tire lubricant.

I used simple green to try to find a tire leak, turns out it was in the valve, but after wiping off the tire completely and rinsing it with a little water, the tire looked gorgeous, wasnt slippery either after rinsing and drying

If you're going to use Simple Green on your bike, be extra thorough when rinsing it off. Bikes have a lot of aluminum and Simple Green is corrosive to aluminum. I've had good luck using Extreme Simple Green. It was developed for use on aircraft, which are mostly aluminum.