When I come home after a dirt bike romp in the mud, I only care about getting all the goop baked on or clinging ferociously to the motorcycle. I’m not concerned about saving the world or signaling my virtue—I just want the bike clean and ready for the next ride. Having said that, not everyone feels that way. The Muc-Off Bottle For Life Plus Punk Powder Bundle, which includes a reusable aluminum spray bottle and Punk Powder Bike Cleaner, manages to remove the crud while keeping the self-righteous pearl-clutchers at bay.
When you unbox the Muc-Off Bottle For Life Plus Punk Powder Bundle, you’ll find a one-liter aluminum spray bottle with a neon-green silicone base. There’s also a plastic sprayer and a recyclable cardboard pack with two paper-wrapped doses of Muc-Off Punk Powder inside. According to Muc-Off, the Bundle reduces the amount of packaging used by two liquid bike cleaner one-liter bottles by 92 percent. I’m not sure how that’s measured, but you get one less bottle and sprayer, and you don’t get two liters of water that you can get right out of the tap, making it far more efficient to ship. Plus, you won’t be throwing out any bottles, as the Bottle For Life is intended to live on forever in your garage, rather than a landfill—you know that plastic rarely gets recycled, right?
The system works pretty easily. You pour a liter of water into the Bottle For Life. Then, you tear open the single-use (shame on Muc-Off!) package of Punk Powder and pour it in. That’s a bit trickier than it sounds, so do it in the sink or use a dry funnel unless you don’t mind a bit of a mess of what looks like the stuff I used to pour in my mouth from Pixy Stix. No, I didn’t taste the Punk Powder for comparison. If you’re a vegan, you’ll be happy to know that the ingredients are plant-based. The alkaline Punk Powder is also free of alcohol, acids, solvents, and CFCs, but you still don’t want to consume it. Regardless, with the Punk Powder in the Bottle For Life, you screw on the sprayer, shake vigorously, and you’re ready to go.
Having taken the Honda CRF450RL into some nasty mud bogs in the Drinkwater Flats area of the Angeles National Forest, the dual sport bike seriously needed a bath. I had ridden home on the street, so the mud had plenty of time to coalesce in every nook and cranny. The crusty CRF450RL is the perfect venue for putting Punk Powder to the test.
Punk Powder is a “spray on after rinsing” style of cleaner. I resisted the temptation to get out the pressure washer, as I didn’t want to give the Punk Powder any help. Instead, I used the garden hose and a garden-variety spray nozzle. While much of the surface mud came off, there was still plenty of work to do, especially on the engine, exhaust system, front disc guard, and swingarm.
My initial pulls of the sprayer on the Bottle For Life were fruitless. Great, I thought—the sprayer doesn’t work. Being a diligent tester, I persisted. Eventually, some of the mixture of water and Punk Powder started coughing out. I realized the vigorous shaking had foamed up inside the Bottle For Life, inhibiting the pumping action. Once I got the flow going, it was fine, and the problem didn’t reoccur.
I sprayed the Punk Powder concoction on the bike and left it on for the recommended five minutes while my friends across the street and I discussed the new orange tabby cat roaming the neighborhood. When the timer went off, I returned to the CRF450RL and sprayed off the Punk Powder solution.
Impressively, all of the mud washed off, and there was virtually no residue. The stack of rags I had on hand went almost unused. As you can see from the photos which ere taken before a rag touched the bike, the CRF450RL was free of the goopy mud that had tagged along for the ride home. Wow!
The Muc-Off Bottle For Life Plus Punk Powder Bundle gets the job done. If you care about all the touchy-feely aspects, so much the better. My concern is that the muddy motorcycle is getting cleaned with as little effort as possible, and the Punk Powder got the job done. I like the feel of the aluminum Bottle For Life, and its stabilizing base is a practical add-on feature. The Bundle runs $35, which is a great deal, mainly because it works. A four-pack of the Punk Powder is $30, which is good for over a gallon of the cleaning solution—that’s a lot of washes. Plus, you can show it all off to your local environmentalists, who will be forced to nod approvingly as you wash your bike—they might even forget how you got it dirty.
