chain lube or "just" GT85

following on from the bike washing thread it seemed that people are split between lubing their chains with a specific lube/oil whereas some people just gave it a spray of GT85.

Are there benefits of one over the other? Personally I always spray the front and rear mech with GT85 but use lube on the chain.

cheers

GT85 for me… I generally get 3000 miles out of a chain, which I’m happy with 🙂

Prefer GT85 with a good spray before each ride on the Brompton or hybrid. If I’m on the MTB and liable to get wet/muddy I’ll use traditional lube.

GT85 is a pretty good degreaser. I’d clean my chain with it, but not lube my chain with it. YMMV.

GT85’s not a lube, it’s a water displacer.

Putoline wax, yes it’s a faff, yes it’s £25 for a tin. But a tin lasts a lifetime and the last two times I lubed a chain were this week and September. that’s 4 months of shitty rainy riding, with no lubeing. It still hadn’t washed off, the gear cable was clogged up and it didn’t seem worth replacing that and not lubeing the chain whilst the bike was in the stand for 20min.

Wax lube in the summer. Wet lube for winter. GT85 for fixing jammed padlocks, seized metal things, squirting muck out of cable outers etc.

I use chain lube, mostly seasonal/condition based but rocknroll most of the time.
I don’t bother measuring in miles as it’s very selective on a mountain bike as to what your doing it through.

To be honest I’m normally pretty good at lubing chains, but on my cross bike this (last) year after an hour or so of racing and an hour of cleaning the damn thing after the race a liberal spray of Fenwicks PTFE bike spray over the mech and gears has done fine.

Granted the chain only lasted 500km, but that 500km of gritty, muddy $h!tty cross racing and training, so I’m not too bothered for £15 or whatever a chain costs.

thisisnotaspoon – Member

GT85’s not a lube, it’s a water displacer.

It is a lubricant- it’s largely thin mineral oil (so is WD40). Doesn’t mean it’s great for chains mind.

Could I just ask everyone where they ride? For about 6 months of the year our trails are wheel-swallowing axle deep filth. Its this every time….

And I do mean every ride. Otherwise your chain would last a week, tops!

Could I just ask everyone where they ride? For about 6 months of the year our trails are wheel-swallowing axle deep filth. Its this every time….

I think if that were the case I would go elsewhere or move 😉 Nice to get going on rocky stuff in the lakes in winter, at the moment the biggest issue is the dust, hard to get too close to other riders..

I clean my chain with a chain cleaner, loaded with a bio-degradable chain cleaner, then wash it off by putting into my bucket of soapy water, hang to dry for a bit (usually whilst I’m cleaning the rest of the bike) then spray with GT85 to disperse the water, finally lube with Finish Line Cross Country Wet Lubricant. I ddi try a dry lube this summer but my Sram X1 1 x 11 didin’t seem to run as well.

I’m with Binners, I’m having to use some wet lube before almost every ride. It has been filthy riding in Cornwall recently.

It is a lubricant- it’s largely thin mineral oil (so is WD40). Doesn’t mean it’s great for chains mind.

There was an article written in one of the sailing mags years ago about it after a load of people reported blocks failing and autopilots jamming.

WD40 turns out to be such a good lubricant that it allows metal parts to get closer together and actually cause friction. There was also something about the surface chemistry of metals under pressure, can’t quite remember the details (any tribologits on the forum?) but either it was preventing the surfaces from hardening or preventing them from softening under load and providing their own lubrication which actually made it worse than water.

Always wondered if something like Harken McLube would work on a bike, I suspect it’s not so good under constant use and better at staying put despite regular dunkings. I think it’s actually the same stuff as fork juice.

Could I just ask everyone where they ride? For about 6 months of the year our trails are wheel-swallowing axle deep filth. Its this every time….

Or this every 4 months…………..

any tribologits on the forum

There is actually – HansRey, in Sunny Finland.

Edit – I didn’t pick up on the spelling before – did a tribologist once hurt your feelings?

Santa fetched me a deep fat fryer and some putoline so i’m waxed and ready to go….just wish I hadn’t put my back out last Wednesday!!.

I’m using this, goes on pretty wet, but dries to a wax, couple of applications and it’s good for ages, best of all, it doesn’t turn your drive train into that horrid black junk you can get with some traditional wet lubes.

deleted double post

The putoline really is awesome tbh. If it just had a bit more rust prevention it’d be perfect, as it is, it’s merely awesome.

Scotoiler http://www.scottoiler.com/us/products/ultimatebikesolution.html

Original and Ultimate Bike Solution. I ride through Ochil Slop (That’s central Scotland hill mud to you..) all year round and everyone I ride with uses UBS. Finish ride – light hosing and then spray drive train with UBS and other suspension parts with Original. It actually washes off during the ride but lubricates as it does so, which sounds wrong but isn’t, cause it stops the crap from sticking to your chain in first place. My drive train is always sparkly clean! (and it includes a rust inhibitor)

both

Post-ride I use GT85 for getting water out of the links and preventing my chain seizing with rust. Pre-ride I lube with dedicated chain oil.

Another vote for UBS. Brilliant stuff.

I know some folks are happy with UBS but for me it performed as well as you’d expect a water soluble chainlube to perform- washed off pretty much instantly on a wet ride, absolutely useless. Didn’t do any harm I suppose, just didn’t do any good either. I don’t get it tbh.

hate using wet lube, chain is always ends up a horrible black mess

currently using this stuff, keeps my chain feeling super smooth and can come back form filthy rides looking like new.

^^^^ I’m a big fan of Squirt lube, but when trails are as sodden as local ones are just now it’s Muc Off C3 Ceramic every ride. When it runs out I will be on Rock ‘n’ roll Extreme

Another one converted to Squirt here. After winters spent scraping mountains of black shite off drivetrains, this just needs a quick spray with a hose, a wipe with a rag, and re-application takes about 20 seconds. I reckon I might need to stick a bit more on after 25 really wet miles, though.

I know some folks are happy with UBS but for me it performed as well as you’d expect a water soluble chainlube to perform- washed off pretty much instantly on a wet ride, absolutely useless. Didn’t do any harm I suppose, just didn’t do any good either. I don’t get it tbh.

+1

Even in the dry it struggled to get to 50 miles before the drivechain got noisy.

Chain was spotless though, but that’s not really the point of a lube, just the absence of a problem with the bad ones.

I reckon I might need to stick a bit more on after 25 really wet miles

does it really last that long ? I’ve always been a bit wary of using in in really wet conditions, but if that’s the case I may try using it winter as well as summer.

hate using wet lube, chain is always ends up a horrible black mess

Funnily enough I find this on my road bike but not my mountain bike. I think I’m actually more fastidious with the cleaning of the drivetrain on my mountain bike than the roadie 🙂

Wet lube on a clean chain, leave it a couple of minutes then wipe off the excess. Never get claggy black gunk cos I suppose my MTB chain gets cleaned after most rides in winter.

GT85 after bike washed / chain dried and then Juice Lubes Viking Juice (as above) prior to riding

lube here,

used wet muc off for ages and its horrible stuff. just turns to black in no time and is a pain to remove without degreaser. sticks well though but makes a lovely calderdale grinding paste.

trying c3 dry lube atm, better but not as good in the wet obviously but as i lube after every ride its not an issue.

been using ubs (on second bottle) good in the summer but the first puddle and its gone. killed the chain last time in a few hundred miles.

I don’t like to risk getting stuff like GT85 on my brakes (I did once, on a rim braked bike, it was astonishing the amount of noise it made) so I avoid using any aerosol lubes on the chain.

Almost always wet lube for me these days, with regular degreaser/chain brush wheel thingy cleans which keeps it all running smooth (for a lot longer than dry lube would even in fairly dry conditions – I did go through a dry lube phase but then read some guidance from a British Cycling mechanic bloke and once I tried it I didn’t go back)

Dry lube all year , Teflon based . Wet lube just makes a mess .

It doesn’t need to.

Dab a droplet where the links meet, at each point, back pedal a load to make sure it’s worked through, quick wipe with a rag to finish.

Sliding surfaces have all the lube they need, and the bits that don’t need it are dry, clean and not attracting muck any more than they need to.

Rock n Roll. Although it seems to be completely unobtainable now. Does anyone know why?

My Gravelcore-Bridalslayer has been getting the most use lately, at the moment, every couple of weeks the chain is taken off, rattled about in some white spirit or meths, then dumped in a jar of old oil for the night, wiped clean and refitted the next day…

In between it gets the odd wipe over with an old paint brush that’s been dunked in the oil filed jam jar…

I have tried various posh lubes in the past, no more effective IME.

And I begrudge spending vast sums on lubricants for a rather agricultural drivetrain that, isn’t actually moving all that fast, or under particularly huge stresses, and is completely exposed to the elements…

Rock n roll is now available in UK from cycle clinic, new distributor :

here

jaffejoffer – Member

hate using wet lube, chain is always ends up a horrible black mess

currently using this stuff, keeps my chain feeling super smooth and can come back form filthy rides looking like new.

Hmmm… just been reading reviews of that stuff and need some more chain lube. £7.56 on Prime so will give it a go.

+1 Squirt. Just wipe down after rides.

It may seem odd at first as it’s wax based and the chain may seem dry after applying. Key thing is it gets into the rollers and coats the surface inside. It’s near effect to what you get from the factory, but the outside isn’t sticky or gooey. Oil on the outside is what sucks in crud and causes black chains and gritty grinding. Wet lube especially. But where it counts is inside.

GT85, like WD40 (same company), is a degreaser. Yes it has light lubricant properties, but far better at removing grease. I use it to clean out bearings 😉 . It’s a water displacer also so handy when cleaning, but not much of a lubricant on chains. Keep it well away from bearings.

Squirt’s good a lot of the time but I found occasionally it’d just disagree with some flavour of mud and totally shit the bed, which was pretty annoying. Not often mind but often enough. So I ended up only really trusting it in summer but when it’s good, it’s great.

Seriously, if you’re into wax lubes do consider the putoline. It’s expensive for a tin to start with but I’ve no idea how long that tin lasts- years, anyway. So over time it’s going to work out a fraction as expensive as other lubes. It’s an enormous faff to apply but it needs done less often (*), and it keeps your chain working better than anything in bad conditions so basically you’re trading a bit of extra faff, for better drivetrain performance and lifespan. It does leave a black coating but it’s not ugly like, say, finish line black slime, it’s just- well, it’s a black wax.

(* when I say faff, I mean do it wrong and you might set yourself on fire levels of faff. But I love that I can go and do, say, a manky scottish winter enduro and just not worry about the chain, even that time the frame blocked up so badly that the chain was literally running through a mass of mud, round a chainring that was encased in mud, then through a mud chain device)