[Closed] chain lube

Smoove and Squirt seem to be highly regarded on STW.

I've been using Shimano PTFE lube for years but am running low so keen to try something else.

I use Purple Extreme for everything, road, mountain and anything in between, and in nearly all weathers, the exception being very heavy rain, in which case i'll use some Finish Line wet, or more usually just leave the bike at home and go for a run 😃

I really like the Weldtite TF2 Performance as an all-round lube.

Nice Goldilocks consistency and doesn't clag up on MTB.

White Lightning Epic Ride for road bike and dry MTB rides. Still stands up to a bit of water though.

for the smoove/squirt and purple extreme lubes, how do they fair to a dirty ride/hose down? reapply on top of a hosed chain, or is a run through a chain bath needed most times?

^^^ there will be no squirt left on your chain after 2 hrs of usual Mugdock trails anyway...

I have yet to apply the smoove I bought last year and try on trails. I did try on gravel bike but put too much on and it became a mess, deffo one where less is more and a very good initial degrease required

For cheapness, longevity and reduced wear you cannot beat putoline and what you do is a perfect match for it. It only needs to be redone every few rides to every few thusand miles depending

Why pay £5 or £10 for a tiny bottle containing a few grammes of wax in solvent when you can buy a kilo of wax for £30 - and only have to lube the chain occasionally

Riding in the finest Surrey Hills grinding paste I found that Smoove and Squirt needed to be reapplied every wet ride, and on the worse rides were clearly not lasting the full ride. In the winter chain wear was quite fast.

Since I switched to Putoline I find that it lasts at least a few very wet rides and often more. And now after several months of use I am impressed that the chain wear appears a great deal lower than with the previous lubes, despite the lousy wet spring and summer we've been having.

I use Purple Extreme for everything, road, mountain and anything in between

This

I do own one of those chain cleaners but I've used it once in the past year. As always, my message is to apply lube sparingly so it never causes a mess.

Oh and that Squirt is shit. I can pee better and longer lasting chain lube than that.

Squirt for the dry and the Fenwicks grey cowshit one for the wet. It really is good in the wet, but stinks if you like to lube in your kitchen.

OK. Putoline bought. will give it a go. figured if I'm going to buy a wax based lube I may as well go the whole hog.

ta

I've switched to squirt this year from wet lube and my shifting is not what it was.

Why pay £5 or £10 for a tiny bottle containing a few grammes of wax in solvent when you can buy a kilo of wax for £30 – and only have to lube the chain occasionally

The answer to this has been done to death. I use Juice Lubes Viking Juice, having used Plutoline in the past,  Viking is IME is just as long lasting.. You're just exchanging price for convenience.

+ 1 for Juice Lubes Viking Juice.

Rock N Roll Extreme was my chain lube of choice until it was hard to get hold of. Not tried the non Flammable version yet.

I really like the Weldtite TF2 Performance as an all-round lube

^This. Cleanest and best performing lube I've ever tried. Liked it so much I bought a 1 litre pack. Should last me for years.

Too late now by the looks, but I also found the TF2 recently. It'll be the first time I've bought a second bottle of the same thing for as long as I can remember!

Liked it so much I bought a 1 litre pack. Should last me for years.

I just finished my first litre, it lasted five or six years.

Though I do dabble with other lubes as well.

TF2 performance was my favourite until I found Wickens and Soderstrom - 2gich is now Peatys link lube. Really clean, no degreasing and excellent lubricity.

Same as Scienceofficer - Peatys lube now that I've finished the W&S. Lasts a long time, chain stays pretty clean.

Finding Squirt wax lube to be very good and been using it for over a year now. Much less messy and doesn't attract dirt. Just brush off before re applying. Needs to be applied a good 12 hours before a ride to dry.

Use to swear by Muc Off dry lube but it only lasts one dry ride and gets messy after a few applications.

You’re just exchanging price for convenience.

Nope - putoline is both cheaper and more convenient as it only needs applying occasionally. My commutter I did twice a year. Many times done two week tours without needing to relube

we'll see how it pans out for how i use my bikes. it may be OK, or I may be selling part used putoline....

I bought some Revolubes a while back whilst it was on offer.
I used it once but it washed off..it needed warmer conditions for the first application, not got round to using it again but will do soon, it promises great things 🙂

Has anyone tried it?

REVOLUBES.CO.UK "https://revolubes.co.uk/collections/cycling"

Bicycle Lubes
– Revolubes UK

From road and gravel to MTB and e-bikes, our advanced lubricants, cleaners, and greases keep your drivetrain and bearings in peak condition. Ride longer with reduced wear, smooth shifting, and lasting performance—whatever the terrain or weather. Precision care for every cyclist.

Nope – putoline is both cheaper and more convenient

Cheaper? undoubtedly. convenient? hardly

You

take off chain bike while at the same time heating stinking basket of wax in a DFF, wait while wax melts, be careful to not allow it to contact any clothes that you don't want permanently stained, put in chain, swoosh around, stand around a bit while it cools, fish out chain, hang it up to dry, knock off excess wax, refit to bike...

Me

Drip some fluid on a chain after washing bike....erm...make a cup of tea

Q: How do you tell if someone has Putoline on their bicycle chain?

A: Don't worry, they'll tell you.

Rock n Roll extreme was my lube of choice too until I just bought a bottle of the new stuff.
I wouldn't even call it lube anymore, more just a bottle of solvent, doesn't even last one dry ride...

@tjagain

Doesn’t your commuter do only a couple of miles per day?

I’ve also been using Shimano PTFE lube for a couple of years. It works well, stays on in all weathers and only needs stripped and re-applied once every few weeks. In my case that’s 250-350 miles on the commuter.

I swapped my first chain on the drivetrain at just under 0.75 and 5200km.

Lol @ chaka and nickc!

It's the question that spawns a million answers.
A bike chain is basically an open gear box so I don't think there's any silver bullet.
It will get gunked up and will need cleaning.

How fastidious you are is a matter of personal choice.

There seems to be muc off ceramic wet and dry discounted on eBay. Anyone have experience of either of the Ceramic?

@tjagain

Doesn’t your commuter do only a couple of miles per day?

this was when I was doing 14 miles a day 3 days a week. I relubed it every thousand or so miles.

Nikc - actually my proceedure is simpler than that and it is done so less often. Every thousand or more miles on the road, every few hundred offroad and chain life is so much longer.

A chain is £20 though, if it's every 5 months, well, it's £4 a month.

@weeksy been using Muc-off wet in the winter, and Ceramic dry the last couple of months (mostly dry)
THe Dry works well, applied drop per link. It wouldn't last a long 80k ride so I've started putting on a second application half an hour after the first and that has been really good. Clean shifting and smooth chain travel.
It does need cleaning if the chain gets wet and muddy (British Summer time?), but i tend to clean my chain with a Park chain scrubber every couple of rides anyway to get the crud or dust off.

In relation to another comment above, have removed my SRAM 12 speed chain and used the same quick link to reinstall with no problems at all.

Anyone tried the Absolute Black chain graphene wax blocks? Compared to putoline?

Purple was my favourite but harder to get over in Oz - eBay
Squirt seems to last one ride then back to squeeks and funny chain noises
Sometimes Aldi here has Muc Off dry lube on offer.
I prefer the performance (or perceived performance) of wet lubes but not the sticky black chain tattoo on my right leg!

Putoline supplier has told me none in stock till the end of the month, so back on it...

top of the list;
purple extreme
TF2

however, which TF2?
TF2 Extreme wet
TF2 performance All weather
TF2 cycle oil
TF2 Dry
TF2 ultra dry wax

I think it's the TF2 all weather I should be looking at, but....

TF2 performance All weather

That's the boy.

Which Peaty's link lube? All weather or Dry?

The Dry lube is a wax suspended in water so not unlike Squirt (which I like, but only on my good road bike which rarely sees rain).

Is TF2 performance all weather a wet or dry lube? Road.cc review seems to describe it was being wet but not attracting/sticking to contaminants?

I can never decide if I like Putoline or not. I think I agree with TJ in that long term convenience is good, I've already slipped into the habit of basically ignoring my drivetrain over successive wet rides, or at most giving it a quick wipe with some GT85 on a rag. For winter CX duties I think it will remain my lube of choice.

Buuuuuut.... I actually quite like the routine with a drip lube, even with Finish Line wet I found it reasonably easy to keep chain cleanish by just applying sparingly and wiping off excess. Even easier with halfway-house sort of dry/sort of wet lubes like Fenwick's Stealth or similar. I think on the bikes that don't see back-to-back filthy rides I might go back to drip lubes.

I used to use oil drip lubes, typically Pedro's, and clean and relube every ride.

Then I started using Squirt in the summer but found it washed off too easily so used Squirt for the dry season and Putoline in the wet season.

Then I went from 9 speed to 11 speed and found that the shifting wasn't as good with the Putoline, even if I took the surface excess off with a baby wipe.

I think switched to Smoove and haven't looked back since. It does however, need a very clean drive to start but I no longer need to degrease the cassette and rings. I clean the chain with a baby wipe and if the rollers feel too loose, it gets a drip or two on each link.

If the bike is getting a thorough wash, I remove the chain.

Since switching to Smoove, I spend a lot less time degreasing, cleaning and relubing my drive.

(But I probably still spend more time than most folk).

I've tried a few and I don't think there is a magical do it all product out there.

Its basically a compromise between a clean lube that you need to apply often or a sticky lube that you don't need to apply so often but you need to degrease the chain.

I've tried UBS and Squirt at the clean end and Finish Line and Muck Off wet at the sticky end.

I've settled on Muc Off C3 Dry as a reasonable compromise. It will last a few dry rides, won't wash off straight away if its wet but you will need to re apply it after a long wet ride.

I’ve tried a few and I don’t think there is a magical do it all product out there.

Yeah I think this is where I'm at. For me Viking Juice is about as close as I can get to wax with a routine that I'll actually stick to (I've no time for putoline, or anything that isn't just drop it from a bottle onto the links of an in-situ chain) it's pretty long lasting in the summer (or less demanding months)  I can get away with not lubing a chain for weeks at a time, and even in the winter it's good enough to not have me looking for an alternate.

just find what works for you and use it regularly

Is TF2 performance all weather a wet or dry lube?

Thin wet. Doesn't gunk-up on MTB, might do a bit on road.

I'm so used to lubing before each ride that I'm quite surprised to hear some of you go a while between lubes. I guess that's the cost/benefit of using thicker lubes.

That approach is not for me, but YMMV (literally).

maybe I should get some TF2, use that prior to longer rides then revert back to scottoiler/Flaer for a drivetrain clean and lube in one, when I know I'm on shorter rides.

maybe...

I can actually see myself just using TF2 tbh.

I’m so used to lubing before each ride that I’m quite surprised to hear some of you go a while between lubes. I guess that’s the cost/benefit of using thicker lubes.

It takes some getting used to, but once you commit to the idea that you don't really need lube on the outer surfaces of the chain, and if you are prepared to have faith that e.g. Putoline isn't getting washed out from inside the rollers, then you can start to relax about lubing every ride.

I can't say I'm seeing any longevity benefits from Putoline which makes me wonder if it's really protecting the insides of the rollers as it should, but the drivetrain feels fast and silent despite not being lubed externally so I guess it's working! Squirt seems similar in that if you apply a couple of thick layers initially and have faith that it will gradually fill up all the gaps in between the rollers, then the occasional washing-off of the surface layer isn't a huge problem, in fact it can just result in a nice clean chain to re-apply on to once you get home!

Wiping the surface of the chain with GT85 on a rag seems to be the magic bullet with these lubes, keeps it shiny and clean.

Bikes used off-road experience hammer and abuse like nothing else. They need to be checked and inspected for issues more frequently to avoid nasty surprises and avoidable, ride ending failures.

I lube my chain after every ride because I think its good practice to run uncontaminated lube in your chain as much as you can, and it facilitates a cursory, but frequent inspection of ones drivetrain - which as I have found is especially important for mr snappy GX outer link failures...

My experience of putoline was that it was barely better than TF2 for my riding and conditions was sticky and horrid, stiffened shifting and was too much hassle for the minor benefit. YMMV inevitably because, as has been stated, there is no magic single solution.

cheers all.
maybe putoline works really well for those that own rustproof 853 bikes 😉

going to try some TF2 all weather as it's relatively cheap and sounds OK.