Originally Posted by
JohnJ80
White Lightning Clean Lube is rated in the bottom third for lube efficiency of lubes tested by Friction Facts. It's right behind Vaseline Petroleum Jelly and ahead of Finish Line Ceramic Grease.
If you are quoting from the Velo article, I think you need to go reread
the article again. Clean Ride isn't listed in that article nor is petroleum jelly. If you have another article, list it.
The differences between the lubricants are also relatively small...on the order of 3 watts. I'm not terribly concerned about saving 3W of power in the grand scheme of things.
Originally Posted by
JohnJ80
You can keep pretty much any drivetrain clean if you make sure the lube is in the chain and not on the side plates where it does nothing useful. Simple matter of squirting a little WD40 in a rag and running the chain through it.
Yes, the lube needs to stay in the chain. The problem is that with a liquid that simply isn't going to happen. Liquids flow under gravity. Any
liquid oil you put on the top of the chain links is going to flow through to the bottom of the chain. The simple act of moving the chain around the drivetrain is going to move the liquid to the outside of the chain. In fact, the whole point of putting chain lubricant of
any kind on the the chain is to move the old lubricant out of the chain to the outside. Even the wax lubricant I use does the same thing. The only difference is that the solvent that carries the wax evaporates and leaves behind a lubricant that is solid and doesn't flow. I don't have to constantly wipe my chain because nothing moves to the outside.
Originally Posted by
JohnJ80
I've also found that spraying WD40 on a chain and quickly working it over with a shop brush (still on the bike) and then spinning the chain backwards while wiping floats all lot of the internal gunk out of the chain. I keep doing that until it comes up clear on the rag, then I add lube. Whole process takes <5 minutes, is not messy and the chain is clean as new.
My favorite lubes are (current favorite) Morgan Blue Race Oil and Rock N Roll Gold. For winter riding, nothing tops Chain-L.
I change my chain according to my Park Chain checker or at the end of a season. Typically I'm probably getting about 4000 miles out of a chain if I were to let it go to the end. I don't let it go that far because I want all my cassettes to wear evenly.
J.
The reason that you are having to "work" the WD-40...or even use it to begin with...is to manage the constant movement of your lubricant to the outside of the chain. And you have to deal with all that "internal gunk" because it was external at some point and ended up inside the chain.
The White Lightning I use
never has any "internal gunk" coming out when I put on fresh because it doesn't trap external gunk to begin with.
And I can handle my chain at anytime without ending up with greasy hands.
I also get about the mileage out of my chains. The difference is that I don't spend half my time obsessing about cleaning up after the lubricant.