Cleaning a dirty bike is never much fun, so anything that makes it easier is to be welcomed. This four piece brush set from Park Tools gives you a comprehensive armoury for dealing with caked on mud, grubby rims and cassettes that look as if they’ve been dipped in Marmite.

All four brushes have their specific uses, some more useful than others. The tyre and frame brush is only going to be of real use to offroaders and cyclocrossers. It’s far too big for road tyres and unless you have a downtube like a drainpipe it’s not going to do much for that part of your bike either. The tapered detail brush isn’t hugely useful either. It gets into narrow spaces, under brakes and behind sprockets but the bristles aren’t stiff enough to have any real scrubbing power.

Of rather more use is the gear brush which has a handy scraper for getting between your sprockets and a sturdy scrubbing brush at the other end for tackling caked on grot. The real star of the show is the sponge brush, which does pretty much anything. The bristles shift the muck and the sponge holds enough soapy water to rinse it off. It’s particularly good at cleaning rims and spokes.

These brushes fit nicely in the hand and should last a good long time. They look good too, in classic Park Tools blue and black. However, at almost 20 quid they ain’t cheap and as only two of them are really useful for roadies they don’t exactly represent sparkling value for money. If you have better things to spend your money on then a sponge and an old toothbrush will probably do the job just as well, though not as stylishly.

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road.cc test report

Make and model: Park Tool BCB4 Bike Cleaning Brush Set

Price: 19.56

About the tester

Age: 39  Height: 5′ 8"  Weight: er….80kg

I usually ride: GT Rave – singlespeed conversion. My best bike is: Guess SC1 scandium

I’ve been riding for: Over 20 years. I ride: Most days. I would class myself as: Experienced

I regularly do the following types of riding: time trialling, commuting, fixed/singlespeed,

The report

Rate the product for quality of construction:
 
7/10
Rate the product for performance:
 
7/10
Rate the product for durability:
 
7/10
Rate the product for comfort, if applicable:
 
7/10
Rate the product for value:
 
4/10

Did you enjoy using the product?: Even pimpy brushes don’t make bike cleaning a joy…

Would you consider buying the product?: No

Would you recommend the product to a friend?: No

Overall rating: 6/10