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Old 10-01-11 | 07:43 AM
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cyccommute
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From: Denver, CO

Bikes: Some silver ones, a red one, a black and orange one, and a few titanium ones

Originally Posted by shawmutt
Use kerosene to wash the chain off first. It will clean off the water and lube the chain, and it will smell so bad you won't mind the smell from the other lube!
Originally Posted by Looigi
Mineral spirits, especially so-called odor free mineral spirits, smells much less. Lamp oil, essentially purified kerosene, smells less too.
Neither does a very good job of displacing water. It's the water and oil thing. If you really wanted to remove the water, you could use denatured alcohol or acetone. Those won't even dissolve much of the chain lubricant. Both are awful choices for cleaning chains.

Personally, and I use wax lubricants, I let my chains air dry after rain and/or snow. But where I live rain storms are short and intense while snow tends to be much drier than other parts of the country. Wax lubricants aren't all that bad at keeping water out of the chain for short periods and our low humidity levels here dry the water is very short order. That also reduces the rusting of the metal because there is little water trapped at the metal surface here.

If I'm traveling (bicycle touring mostly) in wetter areas, I still wait for the chain to dry to avoid trapping water at the metal surface with fresh lubricant but I do risk a bit more rust.
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