The cycling world is awash with cleaning products that claim to be the best at giving you a clean, shiny bike with the least effort required. Every one of them comes in a plastic container of some sort though and there are also plenty with chemical cleaning additives that aren't great for the environment or aquatic life either.
Schwalbe's development team decided they wanted the cleanest possible solution to this dirty problem and came up with a completely plastic-free, eco-friendly product. As you've no doubt already deduced from the photo, their solution to greener bike cleaning is an old-fashioned looking bar of soap.
Despite appearances, this is no regular lump of soap though. It's completely biodegradable, made from vegan ingredients, and is dermatologically tested to give "the best cleaning power" and has been "formulated with bike cleaning in mind", as a Schwalbe representative told us.
Schwalbe product manager, Peter Krischio, describes the soap as having "an excellent cleaning and degreasing effect and is highly foaming. The dirt particles on the bike become wrapped [with the soap] and can be washed off afterwards, without scratching. The soap also has fat-dissolving properties. It‘s all very simple."
The perfume-free, all-natural soap should last for up to 100 uses and is available as a bar only, or bundled with a tin storage container and a horsehair cleaning brush in a mesh bag made from wood chip and is also 100 percent biodegradable.
A sample is on its way to us, so we'll let you know how it performs as soon as we can. We're big fans of the idea though, so fingers crossed the soap's bike cleaning credentials are as good as its environmental ones.
The Schwalbe Natural Bike Soap brush, tin, and soap bundle is available now for $36.69 / £29.99 / €29.90, soap only $9.16 / £7.99 / €7.90, and tin only $9.19 / £7.99 / €7.90.
