Dirt bikes get dirty, hard as that may be to imagine. Cleaning them takes precious time you’d rather spend riding or shotgunning cans of Red Bull. Unless you have a washing machine big enough for a motorcycle!
It turns out the thing is a lot more advanced than just a big glass coffin with a few lawn sprinklers inside (which is how an inept mechanic like myself might have built it.)
After noticing Australian pro motocrosser Mike Reefman is credited with the video, I hit him up to ask where the washing machine came from. He passed on that it was actually a brainchild of his brother-in-law Paul Adams, and the result of about nine months and “around $11,000 to $15,000” in design and construction.
Adams made the machine for the people in his family, many of whom ride motocross bikes competitively. The machine might be a little impractical for the average bike owner, but if you’ve got a whole team or fleet it starts to make sense.
As Adams explained to me via email, the machine holds “about 40 gallons” of water which get blasted at the bike through four jets. A self-cleaning filter is in place to stop the dirt and oil and such from getting through to the pumps, and the spraying cycle is scheduled by a timer which you can set based on how dirty the bike is.
It cycles through a mild-detergent soap segment and a hot-water rinse segment. After the bike’s been hosed off, the washing machine has an air compressor integrated into it for users to blast a bike air-dry.
The machine is fed by a standard garden hose, and dirty water is dumped with a valve on the other side.
I just like how tidy and well-built it looks. I have way too much fun cleaning oily muck out of the crevasses in my bike’s engine with a Q-Tip, but I can appreciate the concept of convenience. And if I had a whole team of MX bikes to wash, I’d be all over this. Adams just might end up making more of these for tracks or teams, keep your eyes open for one at your next dirt riding event?