Lubrication: what works best?

[divernick]

How far do you normally ride?

 

How does it handle mud?

 

I normally ride between 40 and 70km. Often I'll do more than 1 or 2 rides between lubes. I've never had any issues riding in the mud, but I ride a SS, so mud's not normally an issue in my drivetrain.

[GoLefty!!]

A note from JB's excellent pdf on chains

 

"The science of lubrication, friction and wear is called tribology and is a branch of engineering.

Tribology is a very well-understood science and tribologists are employed by lubricant

companies, bearing manufacturers, vehicle brake manufacturers and just about anywhere you

can expect to solve a problem of friction and wear. Tribologists know that the best lubricant for

bicycle chains is a long-chain hydrocarbon, commonly known as oil. Not wax, not graphite, not

liquid Teflon (which doesn’t exist) and not virgin olive oil, just plain old mineral oil. Often, you’ll

see a new chain lubricant on the market that promises to not suffer the same side effects as oil.

Stay away! If the manufacturer uses words like “dry”, “wax”, and/or ”clean”, it is probably rubbish.

It doesn’t matter that the product’s marketers claim that it was developed by a tri-athlete who won

the Australian open three times in a row back in the 1970s when men were still men and bikes

made of iron. The “developer’s” day-job is most likely that of third oboe player in the local

orchestra or speculating with pork-belly futures. He knows nothing about tribology.

Those popular dry wax lubricants are a combination of a volatile solvent or carrier fluid and a

waxy substance. Once squirted onto the chain, the solvent evaporates, leaving a waxy coating.

At first, the chain is quiet and lubricated and like the bottle says, there is no black mess. However,

this is no free lunch and very quickly – even after just two or three hours of riding – the waxy

substance is worked out of the joints and being a solid, it cannot flow back into the interface. The

result is a dry, noisy chain. Perhaps that’s why they call it “dry lubrication”.

 

Liquid oil on the other hand, gets pushed out with each cycle but also flows back as soon as

pressure is taken off the chain i.e. it flows back into the pin/sideplate interface during the link’s

journey from where it exits the chainring and enters a rear sprocket.

Testing the difference between wax and oil is easy: squirt some of the “dry liquid wax” onto a

smooth surface and wait until it is dry. Rub it with your fingers and note its texture, slightly rubbery

and certainly not slick. Notice that when you scratch a line through the blob, it does not flow back

to fill the void. Now put a drop of oil on the surface and do the same. Play around with the two

substances and you’ll notice that oil flows, wax doesn’t. You’ll notice that oil can be washed off

with soapy water and just about any petroleum solvent. Wax has to be scraped off.

Now imagine the “wax” on your chain. It coats well, but doesn’t lubricate once it has seen enough

work to push it out of the important chain wear interfaces. Washing it off is another matter. After

one or two applications you’ll have so much build-up on the jockey wheels and all parts of the

chain - where ironically lubrication is not needed - that you’ll be searching for something to

dissolve the mess.

I’m sure you’ve often heard someone say that oil “attracts” dirt. This is nonsense. Oil has no

magnetic properties. It merely traps whatever lands on it. Yes it is a problem but far less so than a

chain that’s effectively dry after just a short ride. The dirt collecting on the outside of the chain

doesn’t matter; it’s the oil that’s still on the inside that is doing the work.

Silicone spray lubricants may silence noisy door hinges but they’re useless for bike chains. Again,

this is a two-part liquid – a volatile carrier and light oil. The liquid is sprayed onto the surface and

quickly penetrates deep into the chain. The volatile liquid then evaporates and leaves the surface

nicely oiled. However, the oil in silicone sprays is simply too thin for use on a chain and offers

little more lubrication than water, and is about as long-lasting as the latter. A chain lubricated with

silicone spray makes a sound typical of a dry chain. Try it once and memorise the sound the

chain makes after twenty or thirty kilometres. Memorise it and save your chain from wear

whenever you hear it again.

Something that looks similar but isn’t, is motorcycle chain lubricant. This is also a spray and

therefore appears similar to silicone sprays. It also has a two-part composition – solvent and

lubricant. The latter comprises thick oil in a volatile carrier and does a good job of penetrating the

chain and keeping it oiled in prolonged riding.

The drawback of spray lubricants is the mess. If you don’t develop a technique of catching the

overspray with a cloth, you’ll end up with grease marks on your garage floor. Overspray also has

the habit of getting onto the rear rim, where it at first makes it impossible to brake but later starts

to dissolve the brake pad rubber and creating a gooey mess on the rim that makes the brakes

grabby and noisy.

So how do you choose a good lubricant? Go to your bike shop and find a product that openly

professes to be oil. Anything with the word “dry” or “wax” should be ignored. Find an oil that’s

viscous enough (not too thin) to not fly off the chain when you start spinning fast but that’s also

not too gooey to develop long toffee-trails where the chain exits from the sprockets. Brand names

are not important here because I’m talking good old mineral oil pumped from the guts of the earth

and sold by the barrel on the commodity markets.

Bicycle oil is expensive by petroleum product standards and those little bottles are ridiculously

overpriced. If you don’t want to pay the equivalent of one million dollars a barrel, use plain old

engine oil. It works well, but I don’t like the fact that engine oil is just a teensy bit too thin and

 

throws tiny little drops of black onto my shiny silver rims. If you don’t want to start your own oil

refinery in the garage, I recommend one of the more tenacious bicycle oils typically sold as MTB

oil. I have experimented with chainsaw oil, sometimes called bar oil, on my chain. This oil is very

thick and designed not to fly off fast-moving chainsaw chains. However, it is a bit too sticky and

soils your back wheel by throwing off spider web-thin trails as the wheel turns. I have

experimented with a mix of engine oil and bar oil and came up with the perfect viscosity that

neither throws off drops nor pulls trails. This mix, which ended up as a 2-litre batch, will now last

me for the rest of my life. I dispense it sparingly onto my chain by using a commercial bike oil

dropper bottle.

New products on the market claim to outlast other oils by huge distances. Their claim is true. With

the addition of tackifiers, they managed to make the oil very tenacious and it stays on the chain

far longer than other oils on the market. Although this sounds good, it has a downside as well.

Riding that long with contaminated oil isn’t a good idea. It would be better to simply clean and

relube each day, rather than relying on something that may last you an entire MTB stage race.

When touring, I seldom take oil with me. The bottle always leaks and causes a mess in my saddle

bag. Instead, I make use of the free lubrication service offered at every garage in the country. Pull

in at a convenience garage, head for the black plastic rubbish bin and scratch around until you

find an “empty” oil can. Inside you’ll find at least 25 ml of oil, enough to lubricate the entire Tour

de Farce squad’s bikes. Now courtesy of your average smoker, find a used match. Tilt and

maneuver the can until you get some oil on top, dip the match and dispense the oil, one drop on

every second link, and ride into the sunset.

Prolonged wet riding effectively cleans all oil from bike chains. This isn’t a problem as long as it

keeps on raining. Water is also a lubricant and a wet, oil-free chain is still a happy chain.

However, when it starts to dry out, the chain will start squeaking. Pull up at your first friendly

Caltex and make use of the free bike lube service."

 

 

This is good advice. Avoid those waxy lubrs that has no oil. Wax a is lovely sealant but it still need to lubricate, job its pretty poor at wthout a helathy dose of extreme pressure additive.

[Charvel]

For those who have used Purple Extreme, is it any good? I saw a bottle of this stuff, going for over R200, but it claims to be good in both wet & dry conditions and that it doesn't require any re-application unless washed with soap or a degreaser.

[andydude]

Lubes are about what you as a rider like , it's also how well they are applied that determines how long they last .

 

Shouldn't it be about what your chain likes?

[HappyMartin]

For those who have used Purple Extreme, is it any good? I saw a bottle of this stuff, going for over R200, but it claims to be good in both wet & dry conditions and that it doesn't require any re-application unless washed with soap or a degreaser.

 

I used it and it did not meet my expectations. I will not use it again