Mountain Biking the North York Moors & The Yorkshire Dales

Aquaroto

At the weekend I tried out a new product on the market, the Aquaroto. Not too struck on the name, but what is it and how does it perform?

Basically it's a bit like a loo brush that you attach to the end of your hose via the plug-in adapter that's commonplace on hoses these days. The water from the hose causes the brush to rotate while the water flows liberally from the head to dampen the bits the brush is about to clean.

You just turn on the water and run the brush slowly over your horribly muddy bike! The water dampens the mud and the rotating brush pretty quickly and effectively gets shot of it all. Because the water isn't coming out at any great pressure, you've no danger of forcing water into your bearings or headset etc., nor indeed of soaking yourself. The water just "flows" and washes away all the crap the brush loosens up. It's so easy to use you can even take photos and videos while you're using it!

The head has three speeds, though I never used anything other than the fastest setting as even this is pretty gentle. It's fast enough though, anything faster and it would be splashing water all over you as you use it, so this relatively slow maximum speed is pretty much ideal.

The brush is small enough to get into most places (even through the spokes to get at the hub), though ideally it could come with a smaller head to get into particularly tight crevices. Some places where you stick it it (e.g. between swing arm and seat tube) it stops rotating due to being wedeged a bit tight, but it's still delivering water to the point of action, so it'll still do a job. The brush head I used had the harder bristles of the two options, though to be honest I'd have thought it was the softer option if I didn't know better - it's hardly what you'd call harsh.

I used it after our very muddy midweek ride and I have to say my bike has rarely been cleaner, and I was a good deal drier than I usually am after a bike washing session! At over 20 quid it may seem expensive compared to a hose and a washing up brush, but I found having to only use one tool in one hand much easier, and the water always being right where it's needed, and at a non-lethal pressure, was a real boon too. I'll definitely be getting one. My only question mark would be over how long the brush last before it starts to go fuzzy - and how much a replacement brush can be got for, if at all.

I'll rate it 7.5 out of 10, marked down for not having a smaller brush option.

Aquaroto is available from fanaticsportandleisure.co.uk

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