I put my scoot up on my bike lift, remove the bags and I then sponge bath each wheel then rinse. I then polish what can be seen with some Eagle1 Never dull. Much easier than the hassle of removing the wheel and then worrying about getting the alignment/belt tension right.
I thought this was a joke at first, i'd never even contemplate removing the wheel just to clean it. Hell, sometimes its too much work to put it on the lift just to clean it let alone pull the whole thing off the bike!
I remove the alloy wheels from my Corvette every spring to clean/polish them.
The bike's another story. The only time I'd remove a wheel is to replace a tire. Keep it simple. As other have suggested, use a lift and spin the wheels.
Oh man. I wish i had the time to do that. If i did i would not waste it on removing a wheel to clean it i just wish i had the time it would take to do that. I did look on my list of things to do and that was right below shooting myself in the head.
I'm **** on cleaniness, but taking the wheels off to clean them is insane! Buy a quality jack-stand and you'll be much happier in the long run cleaning your wheels. Much quicker also.