I work nights and usually only ride on the weekends. I refuse to ride it to work, takes the fun right out of it. Bike stays on the lift during the week and I pledge a little here and there after I get off work and the garage has cooled down a little. A couple of times a year I put a hose to it and give it a serious cleaning.

 

One thing to remember for that quick detail when needed-- Lemon Pledge is your friend for all surfaces, but seems to me does work best on plastics.
I use it on everything but tires and mirror glass though, and glass cleaner is brilliant for chrome.

 

I clean it old school. Wait for bike to cool. Rinse down with hose, medium spray. Gather up bucket, microfiber cloths, car soap. Fill bucket with water, wash with sudsy cloth, top down.
Then rinse off and dry with a couple of microfiber cloths. If bike was through rain a lot, then I use a rag to clean pipes and undercarriage. A wash like this takes about 20 minutes, and I do it about every 500 miles. I dry with microfiber clothes in about 15 minutes.

I use Honda Spray wax or Mequir's quick detail spray. I only cleaned wheels with Nevr Dull once in 5K. Whitewalls with Simple Green on a wet Magic Eraser.
My bike isn't perfect but is nice. At end of season I'll take saddlebags and seat off and clean good and wax, with Mothers Carnuba.

 

I have been using armorall brand soap that has some type of wax in it supposedly. Hot water and a garden hose. Super soft wool wash mit. No SCRUBBING. Let the soap do the work. I remove anything and everything easily removed without too much hassle. Wash bike and dry it off with an Absorber. All painted surfaces get a coat of Wizards Mist and shine using a NEW (everytime) super fine micro fiber towel. All chrome gets detailed using Pledge and a used micro fiber towel. The bags are the last thing to get polished. This makes it ten times easier to get at the rear section of the bike including the pipes etc. I do the back side of the bags and the sides of them while off the bike because the crash bars get in the way. Twice a year it gets a full rub down using a quality fine rubbing compound and sealer. Using only ultra soft cotton diaper cloths for rubbing and micro fiber for finish work.

All aluminum gets hit with Busch Aluminum polish. Bike sits with over 40K on it and still has that wet look. A tooth brush works good for headlight trim rings etc to remove bugs.

s100 brings the black back to them black engine parts along with the black section of the wheels.

Some of the locals give me a bad time when they drive by and I have the scooter int he drive cleaning it. They say I spend more time cleaning it then washing it. Well my Odometer always proves them wrong. They spend their day driving around town with a short hop tot he next town over for a beer or whatever. I have been known to drive 150-200 miles 1 way just for a soda. I am hoping for a nice weekend to get one last good ride in before the real work begins around here. The main harvest campaign starts sept 12 and it will be nothing but trucking till freeze up.

 

Concentrated soap
Spray on Bike.. drink beer,
Rinse off with hose
Repeat,

Blow dry with leaf blower
then wax everything that doesn't get super hot.
Use tire shine on a rag to clean inner fairing and black on engine

sometimes I'll lube all hinges,moving parts LPS 1 before washing
I always do the LPS lube at Oil changes

looks brand new

 

Local dealer has an automated bike wash. I run it thru once or twice a month....pledge in between

 

My guess is you guys who aren't using water to clean the bike....will use it if there is grime that you just can't easily wipe off like with a California Duster etc? I would think that you'd scratch the paint pretty good just spraying a cleaner type on and just wiping?

For example the back of the bags right above the exhaust seem to collect a pretty decent amount of caked on grime

 

I ride to work every day, and get lots of dust on the bike. I have to wash it if I'm going on a ride on the weekend, so I wash it at least once a week. I usually wash it while waiting for my wife to get showered dressed. It keeps me from going absolutely crazy and making her mad at me before we leave the house. It takes me about an hour and I feel good because she's happy, and I have a clean bike. We both start the ride with a good attitude.

 

the leaf blower saves me tons of time and scratches....

also learned the peroxide trick for the bugs from a member on this forum, it works great for the bugs.

 

When I buy a bike one of the first things I do is wash and wax it, including all chrome and the wheels. I use Colinite's Insulator Wax (best wax I ever had), it takes a few hours the first time to do it right. Then from there on I use Meguire's Ultimate Detailer spray (best detailer I have found), takes 10 minutes for the entire bike. The bike doesn't see water again that year unless it gets some very heavy dirt from mud puddles or something. My bike looks better than showroom new.