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Trying the impossible here - would like to get a serious answer to a thread with "lube" in the title... ah well, here goes!
After years of using Motorex Wet and Dry Lubes, they went and reformulated them last year, and not to put too fine a point on it, they're now both utterly pants. The new dry lube is particularly awful - gone in minutes (less, if there's a puddle).
I went back to good old Finish Line XC for the winter, but am now interested in something for the dryer months. I'm hoping to narrow the field a little before I start buying various little bottles at ludicrous prices, so any recommendations?
Criteria would include (in order):
1. Long lasting.
2. Clean running.
3. No waxy gunk build up on transmission parts
Finish line Teflon Dry lube. It works great, it's clean, and you can lube your forks with it too.
I use it year-round.
I've setteld on Rock And Roll Extreme as a good all round 'dry' lube.
It seems to be pretty much 4-season, keeps the chain running clean, no build up of gunk and although some would call £5 expensive I do find it's negligable in the overall bike budget !
Very impressed with "Squirt" lube, which I found in Biketrax.
Its a dry lube, runs very quiet and smooth and seems to last OK.
You can't just apply and go though, you need to apply, leave it for five minutes, then apply again.
I needed to re-apply about as often as I've re-applied finish line wet, which was a reasonable interval (60km of wet almost-highlands riding) although to apply it properly takes 10 minutes or so, enough time for a rollie and some cake 😀
using pedros ice wax for years now gone on to ice wax 2.0, works for me all year round in Mendip sh1te
rock n roll extreme for me - great chain lube
I use putoline chain wax. I am convinced it has increased my chain life bu at least two fold over using finishline wet lube if not more and only needs applying ever few hundred miles not twice a ride 🙂
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its a faff to apply and it might be slightly less efficient pedalling as it is a solid wax so has stiction - but I am totally evangelical about it and haven't used anything else for a year now. Its cheap to - £18 a kg - a years use on four bikes and I still have most of it eft.
I found white lighting wax lube very good in summer months. Now I'm using purple extreme all year and very happy with it.
I found white lightening and purple extreme to be useless.
Not heard of Squirt, sounds interesting. Never really got on with Finish Line dry, always found it a bit too thin.
I thought Rock 'n Roll Extreme and Purple Extreme were wet lubes - do they really run that clean in the dry? If they do, they could be very interesting.
Never heard of Putoline chain wax... just off to look that one up!
Interesting TJ, interesting...
You can't just apply and go though, you need to apply, leave it for five minutes, then apply again
That's what I like about the Rock and Roll - squirt, wipe and ride.
Plus for long haul multi-day rides you can just pop it in your pack for mid tour lubing 😉
I thought Rock 'n Roll Extreme and Purple Extreme were wet lubes
well I guess they're on the wet side of dry !!
You dribble the lube onto a moving chain and wipe the excess off with a rag, it does dry out but still slightly wet to the touch.
Never found a problem using in wet or dry conditions...
Mid tour lubing is/was an excuse for me to stop and have a rest, don't want to be [i]too[/i] efficient..
Mid tour lubing is/was an excuse for me to stop and have a rest, don't want to be too efficient..
True enough, but you can't do that with the solid wax type lubes as you need a stove to heat them on and the chain needs to be removed and actually 'dunked' in the melted wax.....
TJ - I'm sure that wax works well, but break the chain and soak it in a tin on the stove? Not for me I'm afraid. Thanks for the info, though!
+1 for Rock 'n' Roll Extreme, but it does need re-applying after every ride (that's AFTER, not before).
[url= http://www.in2dust.co.uk/Contact_Us_&_Sample_Request.php ]Free Squirt here.[/url] Not tried mine yet.
Dry lube = do not go out in the rain, doesn't it?
Sram link so breaking the chain is no hassle - and it really needs to be done so much less often - 1/10 as often as a bottle of lube - and the sprockets stay clean. You don't clean the chin either - just drop it in.
it is a messy faff tho - no doubt but the advantages are worth it.
hilldodger - your description of on the wet side of dry is very much what I'm looking for. That's what I used too like about Motorex, it ran clean but had a some resistance to the occasional bit of wet that you encounter on most rides (even in the summer).
I really rate purple extreme, it's expensive, but you use so little each application (the nozzle helps you save it rather than use it), that it lasts for AGES and works out cheaper than any other lube i've tried so far.
the most extreme consumption was Halfords teflon dry lube - it just gushes out and you go through a bottle in no time. and it makes a mess.
white lighning works for me if you can put up with a nosiy drive chain .
trick is to lube night before wipe off excess works well that way .
+1 Squirt lube = liquid wax which dries like a solida wax 🙂
hilldodger - your description of on the wet side of dry is very much what I'm looking for.
I've run it all year for my daily offroad commute and fun rides, it is fine in rain/mud.
It only works really well if your drivetrain is clean before applying, doesn't mix well with other oils/greases.
Just moved back over to Shimano chains after many years on Sram / KMC. Finding them much better, and while I know I can run a powerlink etc. in there, I prefer to use the Shimano pin.
+1 for finishline teflon
simon1975, thanks for that free Squirt link.
Right then, free bottle of Squirt requested for trial purposes and some Rock 'n Roll Extreme ordered from CRC.
Squirt is ace, lashings of it, I'm pissed when I have to put something else on the chain now ... coz that means I'll have to degrease. It's called a dry lube because its wax not oil, it its doesn't mean it's only for the dry.
The squirt sample worked well for 2-3 lubes! The thread reminded me to order a 120ml bottle.
Just out of interest, do you find that Squirt builds up on the cassette over time? This was a problem I had with White Lightening years ago... and it was a right pain to clean off. Moved away from wax lubes after that.
Squirt's certainly the longest lasting wax style lube I've used - by a long way!
It's much easier to clean off too, so it's thumbs up from me 🙂
No doesn't seem to built up on the cassette IMHO mtm 🙂 Running it on my road bike and my FS 🙂
Pedro's Go! for moi
Been using Ice Wax on the bikes here quite happily for the last 3 years. It works well in this dusty environment where damp and mud is a fair bit less frequent than the UK. So not sure how well it performs in a more mixed environment.
I've found with the squirt that if I apply quite a lot then it will build up on the jockey wheels. but then I'm probably applying too much.
Other than that I've found it to be realy really good in all but the flithiest muddy conditions.
Cleaning is easy too. Just leave the bike to dry, give the chain a wipe down with a rag and then apply.
Cheers, sounds like Squirt has pretty much universally good reports. Thanks for the feedback.
I've been using squirt over the last year for commuting and off-road duties, highly recommended.
I'm using squirt on all the geared bikes -
First application you degrease the chain (I put the chain in a jam jar full of white spirit). Dry it then apply squirt. Leave to dry then apply again
After that you only need to apply the lube once every application.
Now I always remove the chain when washing the rest of the bike - then apply fresh lube to the dry chain.
Its good stuff - although in the depths of winter I still prefer finish line wet on the single speed. I hate the stuff on a geared bike as it makes such a mess of cassette and jockey wheels, but it really lasts on a single speed, even in the worst rain and mud
3in1 type oil from the pound shop works fine as its really cheap I don't mind using it more often it's fine on cables too and the bottle is twice the size of 3 in 1
I don't get why people will pay so much for so little lube cos its cycle specific. The putoline stuff is £18 a kilo for the wax - not a few quid per tiny bottle that is mainly solvent.
i've used plain old chainsaw oil for ages. chain doesn't clog up. cassette stays free of gunk and i'm not the most pedantic of people when it comes to cleaning my bike.....
although, i did just recieve a bottle of Finish Line Synthetic Chain Oil for free from the bike shop yesterday.
some guy comes in and mumbles something about having a present for the mechanic. he then pulls out two bottles of this stuff and puts them on the counter. he mechanic explains that he change swap them as he doesn't stock it. "no, no. you can keep 'em" said the bloke. turns out he'd read an article in a mag saying it wasn't the best performing lube in their test so didn't want them anymore. the price tag is still on the bottle and says 8.50€!
some people have got too much money.... and i've got a bottle of lube.
I've switched from finishline green stuff to some generic drylube. The only problem I have now is I'm obviously not observant enough to know when I need to re-lube as after 30 seconds of being lubed it's the same texture/sliperyness/shinyness as 2 weeks later after several rides. When do I re-lube? How do I know it's gone "dry" lol?!
Rock n Roll Extreme for me, been great for the last 2 years for me in all conditions. Will continue to use.
Hello TJ.
You ready? 😉
I've just reverted to, uh, Finish Line Green wet lube.
I've used Putoline and also Squirt and I think they perform very similarly in terms of longevity and resistance to wet and mud.
Putoline is by far the cheaper of the two but is a faff to apply, Squirt is easier and more expensive.
[b]However[/b], being a huge chain and tyre nerd, I've seen the rate of wear accelerate over the last few months of using squirt. Its not a bad rate of wear comparatively, but its just not as good as my previous lube regime. Down my way, after 4 hours of schlcok, I've got rattly rollers. TJ and I have discussed this and he even took some links apart to examine where the lube remained after some use.
What he's found satisfied him that there was still lube in the right internal spaces of the chain, but I've been less convinced.
My reasoning is simple - wax is solid/semi-solid. After a few rotations at high pressure, its going to get pushed out of the way and [i]cannot flow back[/i] to continue lubricating the chain. Wet lube can.
There's scant information available on this topic, and even less about microfilms and phase changes under pressure, so I'm quite happy to accept that I could be talking out of my posterior, but, it seems to me that wax keeps the exterior look of a chain looking good, despite what's going on inside. Therefore, I now use my squirt stock every so often to coat the chain so that it sheds mud and dirt easily, but leave lubrication to Wet lube.
YMMV.
Go Putoline, pedros or Squirt for drylubes.