Opened by a mechanic, which is why the lance stays back
Nine years on a repair bench, then four bays and an interceptor under each one.
Why this place exists
The job that wore me out on the repair bench was pressing wheel bearings out of bikes that were two years old. Always the same cause and almost never believed: a pressure lance held close to the hub, months earlier, at a wash that cost twenty five rufiyaa.
So this is a wash built the way a mechanic would want his own bike washed. The lance never comes within a hand span of anything sealed. Chains are degreased and brushed on four faces rather than sprayed over. Switch housings are blown dry before the bike leaves, because water sitting in a switch is how a horn dies in April.
The layout came out of the same thinking. Three open bays with a drain and an interceptor under each, so nothing we use goes into the road and then into the sea a hundred metres away. One covered bay, because polish and rust work cannot be done in the sun or the rain.
The bench with the fan on it was an afterthought and turned out to be the best decision in the place. People sit and watch, and after a while they start asking why we are doing something a particular way. That is most of the reason the blog exists.
The two of us
Ahmed Shifau
Ran a scooter repair bench for nine years and got tired of stripping bearings that a cheap wash had killed.
Ali Mikail
Works the covered bay. Will tell you plainly when a plastic is too far gone to polish, which loses us money and keeps customers.
What we will and will not do to a bike
Will the pressure washer damage my bike
Not the way we use it. The lance never comes closer than a hand span, never points up into the underside, and never goes near a bearing, a cable end, a switch housing or the chain. Those areas are washed by hand.
This is the main reason a wash here takes longer than at a roadside round. If your switches have started sticking or a bearing has started grumbling after a cheap wash, that is usually what happened.
Can you get the rust off my chrome
Surface rust, yes, and often completely. Pitting that has gone through the plating, no, and nothing anybody sells will bring that back.
We walk round the bike with you before quoting and point at which is which. About one bike in five is told to spend the money on parts instead, and that advice costs nothing.
Start a card
First punch on your first wash, and it lives here under your number plate.