Flaer might not be a name you’re familiar with, but the Scottish brand are producing the goods. Their Guard and Revive sprays being proof of that.
While the Revive spray competes with your usual suspects in the post-mud bath cleaning product world, it does the job of even getting the worst of the worst off. Guard is something slightly different. Spray it on and it acts as a film so the mud never contacts your bike.
Pete has put both through the Wideopenmag test mill through a Scottish winter to see how they fare.
Guard – £10.00 RRP (750ml).
Flaer’s Guard spray introduced a new, to me, concept to keeping your bike clean. I will be the first to admit not to being the best at cleaning my bike. The Guard spray makes it considerably easier for those with a penchant for throwing the bike back in the car covered in mud. It will even do a decent job of keeping your chain and other ferrous components rust-free.
Spraying the clean bike with Guard prior to heading out means that you really don’t have to worry about the dirt sticking, regardless of how long you’ve left the dirt to dry. Guard forms a film between your bike and the muck, so you’re really just washing the film away with the dirt. Simples. Even without a pressure washer this gets the bike to the same state it was in before it was applied.
5 litre bottles are available to refill the 750ml trigger bottle at £30.00.
Revive – £10.00 RRP (750ml).
What came first, Guard or Revive? As long as you have started applying Guard with a clean bike, Revive is to get the bike back to showroom condition. I cleaned a bike for sale with this and when in the bike shop, another customer thought it was brand new. The depth this cleaner goes to is really something else.
Best used in conjunction with Guard for a ridiculous standard of bike cleanliness. While bike maintenance fluids are not the most exciting things around, Flaer have really hit the mark with these two.
5 litre bottles are available to refill the 750ml trigger bottle at £30.00.
What we think.
A very good twin-attack option for keeping your pride and joy clean. Add in some Invisiframe protection and you might have the cleanest bike on Earth by the end of the season.
Perhaps my only gripe is the trigger doesn’t spray wide enough for my tastes, but hardly a major complaint. A wider spread would make for a faster application and longer life of the bottle contents. The quality of the clean far outweighs that though.
Full details on both the Guard and Revive sprays can be found on Flaer’s website here. You can also buy direct from them via the site.
Keep an eye on Wideopenmag for our trip around Flaer’s facility in northern Glasgow.
How do we test products at Wideopenmag?
Great question. Everything you see reviewed on Wideopenmag is tested by a small, regular group of trusted reviewers. We pick our reviewers based on their experience of riding a wide-range of products and ability to look at products clearly and sensibly without getting caught up in fashion and hype. We pick people that can cut through marketing schpiel, ride loads and can talk to you guys in plain, honest english about their findings. You can find the reviewer at bottom of the page where a review is published.
As of Feb 17 our testers are Jamie (our editor), Pete (our web editor), Rosie Holdsworth (fast, experienced female racer and 2016 Red Bull Foxhunt winner) and Rich Thomas (ex-Team Wideopenmag captain and life-long elite downhiller).
Brands will send us products to review (sometimes we’ll ask to review the products we’re keen to show you guys, sometimes brands will ask us to review something they think you want to see) and we’ll pick the best test pilot for the product.
Bike time is essential. We’ll get our test pilot to thrash the living daylights out of their test product and give us regular feedback on ease of installation, performance on the trail, longevity and value for money. They’ll ride in the wet and dry. They’ll ride their local loop and spend time on unfamiliar trails. They’ll often try the product on various different bikes and styles of riding.
Where you see ‘First Ride’ reviews we’ve typically ridden the product for a few weeks and have formed a decent opinion of the product’s performance … but haven’t ridden it for long enough to fully test its long-term performance over time. When you see a ‘Long Term’ review you know the product has been tested over several months and had a really thorough, long term hammering.
All of our product photos in our reviews will featured used components – we don’t shoot box-fresh, studio shots. Why? Simple. We want you guys to see that our reviews are legit. Everything gets ridden loads, gets a proper hammering and goes through the ringer before we talk to you about it.
