Fenwicks Stealth Road Bike Kit

The Fenwick's Stealth Road Bike Kit is a huge array of environmentally friendly bike cleaning and lubrication products that are all acid and solvent free making them safe to use on any part of your bike including carbon fibre.

Now, thanks to a range of kits you can buy pretty much everything you need at a 20% discount. We've got our hands on the Stealth Road Bike Kit which contains:

1 litre of FS-10 Bike Cleaner

1 litre of FS-1 Bike Cleaner Concentrate

200ml Foaming Chain Cleaner

200ml Multi Purpose Lubricant

100ml Stealth Road Bike Chain Lubricant

Sponge

Chain Cleaning Sponge

For the challenge, we have a Ribble Audax which is my wet weather commuter and it hasn't been cleaned since about March. As you can imagine with the wettest summer in a hundred years the bike has seen some action throughout the last few months. Coated in road spray, mud, oil marks and brake dust paste the frame and wheels are going to need a bit of a scrub, plus the chain has about two gallons of lube, GT85 and grit coating it.

Foaming Chain cleaner & Chain Cleaning Sponge

The chain cleaner is basically a wet degreaser that squirts out of the aerosol nozzle as a pink foam placed directly onto the chain. It's a bit lively, coming out like party string if you're not careful though so a gentle touch is required. The chain cleaning sponge is an extruded 'X' shape and you locate the chain in one of the grooves and rotate the pedals to remove the foam and dirt then rinse with water.

Both work together well and the results are pretty impressive. It's quicker and gives a better finish than using a hand held chain cleaning device. Some of the inner plates were difficult to clean but 90% of the grit and road crap came off. Thanks to using a foam rather than liquid there isn't any oily spray being flung over the chainstays either.

FS-10/FS-1

First of all we've got the trigger spray bottle of FS-10 which is basically a 10% mix of FS-1 and 90% water and is intended for the general cleaning duties. Applying it is easy, take one wet or dry bike, spray with the cleaner, leave it soak before agitating it a bit with the included sponge and rinse off.

Fenwick's say that FS-10 is made from liquid raw materials rather than powdered so there is in no residue or streaks left after rinsing and that is exactly what happens. The frame is clean in about 5 minutes apart from the stubborn oil marks around the chainstays and bottom bracket area.

Using the FS-1 concentrate neat and a bit of elbow grease sees the rest of the frame cleaned thanks to the degreaser.

Overall it's a quick easy job and leaving it to soak on the frame for a few minutes has most of the dirt breaking down by itself.

Multi Purpose Lubricant

This is a pretty standard water dispersant and general lube for your mechs, brakes, cables and such like. It'll also remove adhesives and tar plus help to release stuck components.

Stealth Chain Lube

Fenwick's describe their Stealth Lube as using 'specific cushioning additives' so that the chain gives a quiet ride. Whatever these additives may be they certainly do the job as after application the chain is silent.

The lube is a silvery metallic looking liquid which you apply with a pipette. A drop onto each link allows the thin weight liquid to get into all the surface joints especially after rotating the chain for 20 seconds. Leave it to dry in the air and job done.

Wet weather performance is impressive for such a lightweight lube and it will stand up to some serious downpours before any rust marks start appearing. Most noticeable is the lack of road grit it attracts.

Overall

Top honours go to the Stealth lube. This really is the best chain lube I've used in terms of both wet and dry performance. Coupled with the foam cleaner and sponge this trio worked wonders on a very dirty chain returning it to a shiny, silent running one for very little work.

The rest of the kit works well with both the cleaners removing dirt from the bike with relative ease.

Costing £30, there's a saving of around nine quid over buying everything separately plus you're getting the bucket chucked in gratis.

The chain sponge is said to last for fifty washes and the rest of the kit should easily match that so that's a year's cleaning out of one bucket.

We'll keep washing throughout the rest of the year and into the winter where we'll see how it tackles the onslaught of road salt. I can't see it being a problem though.

Verdict

The best chain lube and cleaner on the market backed up by solidly performing products for keeping your pride and joy running sweetly.