sometimes I think people worry too much or read too much into stuff.

Too true!

But it’s human nature, and we’ve given it a name – displacement activity.

I read the cancer thread just now and was so shocked that rather than booking a checkup with my doctor like I should have done, I wrote a half page epic on chain lube instead! 😆

So, who’s peddling the marketing ‘hype’ here? The chain manufacturers who provide your chain ready lubed with a high quality and expensive industrial chain lubricant, and suggest that for long service life of their product you leave it on for as long as you can. Or the aftermarket chain lubes and the bike shops that sell them, who tell us its just a storage protectant, to wash it off as soon as possible, and flood the chain with their inferior lubricant at every opportunity possible?

I’m either missing all the hype or it’s mostly coming form people on forums agonising for hours about what sort of lube and how to clean this and that.

Ah, but then we get into one of the classic circular arguments so beloved of forums like these. It goes something like this…

By posting on a thread that you feel sorry for all the poor suckers who’ve nothing better to do than endlessly debate (insert topic of your choice here), rather than doing (insert activity of your choice here) which is much more worthwhile, and so positioning yourself as being above their sorry state; you have unwittingly shown yourself as equally sad and misguided as said deadbeats, to be spending your time on the very same thread lambasting them for their harmless myopia, rather than doing aforementioned much more worthwhile activity yourself.

You then riposte that by me spending my time typing this … etc etc … and on it goes. You get the idea 😆

i’d probably better go squirt some chain lube on my bike then or something.

I still genuinely think that people removing their chain to clean it every ride is some huge in joke that I don’t know about or innuendo for something rather strange.

filthy biker 1 “Do you dip your’s in diesel or petrol?”
filthy biker 2 “Diesel mate”
filthy biker 1 “Nice one round the back of Nat West for the ride of your life then?”
filthy biker 2 “Not half – be there in 20!”

Ok, I’ll come clean (oh! the ironing)- you’ve shamed me into it. As my riding buddies would tell you, I am anally retentive about my chain cleanliness – and proud of it!

I put turning up for a ride with a squeaky clean chain somewhere up there with it being spotlessly clean under my foreskin – or at least I would if I had one 😯

And, yes I know that by having the words anally, foreskin, lube, and bicycle chain all in the same post, I’ve opened up a whole world of inuendo 😆

I’m not worried, I’m just interested. Isn’t that why we read and post on forums? And actually I learnt that the compromise solution makes the most sense to me now that I’m not assuming it’s packing grease.

I only asked because I wasn’t sure I could be arsed to degrease and relube a new chain before tonights ride. The irony being, that a/ reading this interesting thread has taken longer than the job and I’m still not much wiser whether I should or not, and b/ when I went out to the garage the bikes developed a case of seized jockeywheel-itis anyway, so the singlespeed’s being dragged out instead. And we know the chain maintenance routine for that…….

I wondered similar a while back and found this intervew on bikerukour.com

Taken from this page http://www.bikerumor.com/2011/06/28/chainwear-challenge-quick-interview-with-shimano/

I took the opportunity to ask one of Shimano’s main tech gurus, Nick Murdick

BikeRumor: What is Shimano’s official stance on the chain lube that comes stock on a shimano chain? Is it actually a lube, or a grease? And is it best to leave it on until the chain gets noisy and relube, or strip it right away and relube before riding?

Nick: So that brings us to lubrication. I mentioned that the chain wears because of friction as the chain moves to wrap around a gear. Well, that friction is reduced if there is lube on the chain. If there is dirt mixed in, the lube makes a bigger difference in reducing friction. If there is water mixed in, the lube helps displace the water. The grease that comes on a Shimano chain is applied at the factory to the individual pieces before the chain is assembled. The grease does a better job of reducing friction than aftermarket chain lubes and it lasts longer. The main reason we use liquid chain lube, whether it is one that stays liquid or a dry lube that has a solid lubricant in a liquid carrier (like a PTFE lube) is because we need to get the lube on a part that is not accessible without disassembling the chain. So the best thing to do when installing a new chain is to leave the factory grease on, not apply any other lube, ride until it wears out and then start applying liquid chain lube. In dusty conditions you can wipe off the outside of the new chain with a rag that is wet with a gentle degreaser to keep dirt from sticking to the grease. The factory grease also keeps the chain nice and quiet. After soaking a chain in degreaser and then lubing the chain with liquid lubricant the chain gets noticeably louder.

Shimano does not have an official recommended chain lube. They all seem to work pretty good. Different people have different preferences and different conditions require different lubes.

So there you have it. You absolutely should leave the original chain grease in place for best performance, and there are differences in construction that were necessary to make up for the narrower 10 speed chain. So far, those differences seem to be working as the 10 speed groups are still slightly better as far as wear, but it will be interesting to see how it plays out in the end!#