Amen on the honda cleaner. I cried when they stopped making it a couple of years ago, but they recently brought it back. While they stopped I used Plexus, which I'd been using for my helmet. Not as good for the rest of the bike but it worked.
I'm as anal retentive as they get. I clean my bike before every ride, with polishing clothes. Every where my hand will reach. And always the wheels because clean wheels make the ride stand out, especially black sport bike wheels. Once I get a system going it only takes 10 or 15 minutes.
And I only wash once a year. Cleaning the way I do before each ride is enough. Even though the owner's manuals say to wash often, I don't because it's my opinion that watering requires complete drying and the tight areas can't be dried enough to completely prevent corrosion.
For the sport bikes I owned, once ayear I removed all the plastic and the tank and cleaned under there. My GSXR had 12k miles on it when I traded it in and it looked almost brand new. One minor clear coat scratch on the tank and a cover rub mark on the tail (had the cover a month and quickly ditched it for a cycle shell). And yes, even those marks drove me nuts. A riding buddy thinks I'm nuts.
My latest obession? My alpine star riding pants have plastic on the inseam of the claf and it stuck bad to my new S83 right side pipe (not as safe, but now I wear draggin' jeans because of this). Did the same on the GSXR once, but the small amount of chrome on that was a million times better and it came off with oven off and a polish cloth. Not so on the S83. After a week of massaging it daily with various fine materials and oven off, I caved in and used a dish scrubber. It came off; and so did pits of chrome, and it left swirls. And now I'm againizing over whether to live with it or get new pipes with better chrome (hehe - my wife thinks I planned it that way!).
It ain't easy being this way. And I certainly don't blame anyone for just gettin' on and riding as is. Must be a relief not to obsess!
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