Best chain lubricant?
 

Any suggestions on the best chain lubricant out there? Also, any suggestions for really good chain lubricants I can easily find at a hardware store?

oil

A quick search of this forum yields this http://www.bikeforums.net/commuting/...hain-lube.html

Google Chain -L and he will send you a free sample of the Best

anything is better than nothing.. ok WD40 may be not but they added confusion by making a bicycle chain lube.

Go off and experiment.

Too bad you could not find any chain lube topic threads on this site, Ever..

:rolleyes:

Harsh crowd here today...yikes! Sorry for asking.

Big search Block at the top of the page, 'Archive' link at the Bottom..

You can catch up on the history, There.

I like Pro-Link.

It's nothing personal; you just happened to touch a nerve with the subject. Chain lube is an oft-beaten dead horse around here.

Between the topic and the fact I originally misread your name as "Nixon Fan", I had you pegged for a troll. ;-)

Thanks!

Kinda like asking what is the best bathroom tissue.

When I was 10 y/o we just used Oil. It worked

No hurt feelings! ☺

Totally unrelated; I recently switched over to Canon, so I'm wondering if I should try to switch my name to Canon Fan! 😊

That's the pattern, 50+ pages of various "I like X brand product " statements..

so it gets the 'Dead Horse' Smilie ..

:deadhorse:

Keep your name. Members are only allowed ONE Name Change.

I would say yes and no. Technology has advanced tremendously in the past couple of decades. Perfect example is with gun oils. I am a Glock armorer and have found that Birchwood Casey Synthetic Gun Oil works much better than more expensive oils like Militec-1. Both are synthetic oils, but have much different properties. Other oils I have experimented with yielded different results. While only a small amount of lubricant is used between the slide and the frame rails, some oils do a better job than others. Some last longer without attracting gunk build up, etc.

Bike chains are much more exposed to the elements than other mechanisms. The city I live in in Florida is notorious for sand everywhere. The soil here contains lots of sand, sand is always on the roadways and bike paths I ride. Sand seems to stick to my bike chains every time I ride. My guess is that some types of oils are better at repelling sand/dirt than others.

P.S., Having recently gone from septic tank to sewer system, I can say for sure that there are really great toilete papers on the market today. When you have a septic tank you are limited to only a handful of medoicre brands of toilette paper, however, when you are on a sewer system you can use the best brand out there!

Started using OIL when I had a BB Gun at 5 y/o

Pattern? I don't get paid to endorse anything. Ask me anything you like about photography equipment and guns ( my only two areas of many years of experience), and I can give you an unbiased answer.

What I can remember using, off the top of my head...

White Lightning wax lube

The good
--no chainring tattoos
--pretty quiet... for awhile
--it doesn't care about water

The bad
--I've had the chain go clattery after 30 miles.
--chain gets chunky
--a big ol' bottle doesn't last very long, as it's getting applied as much as twice a day (YMMV)

T9 Boeshield

The good
--it works
--compared to other lubes, it's cheap
--fairly good when wet
--chain stays quiet
The bad
--hope you like applying before every ride, ~50 mile application interval
--think you've seen a dirty chain? THINK AGAIN
--forget trying to clean it, the solvent will run black until you give up

TriFlow

The good
--smells like bananas
--it works
--compared to other lubes, it's cheap
--doesn't get as gross at T9
The bad
--apply before every ride, pretty much, maybe every other-- 70-80 dry miles, tops
--washes off with water, basically
--as the teflon builds up, gets gummy

EcoSheep "Sheep on the road"

The good
--my god is it cheap
--it works
--really quiet-- when fresh on a fresh chain, the quietest I've used, hands down
--~200 miles between applications
--water resistance is "average," but they have a formula designed for wet riding
--chain is easy to clean
The bad
--~200 miles between applications
--as it builds up, it gets sticky. Hella sticky.
--the stickiness gets worse over time, until the chain looks like a Wooly Willy.

ProGold Xtreme Chain Lube

The good
--by bike chain lube standards, it's cheap
--it works-- really well.
--above average quiet
--~400 miles between applications
--water resistance very good
--never gets tacky
The bad
--does hold onto grime, though not as bad as T9 or TriFlow
--thin, so it can be a bit splattery

MucOff Team Sky Extreme Hydrodynamic Chain Lube

The good
--it works-- amazingly
--it smells fancy. I'm not even kidding
--above average quiet
--~700-800 miles between applications
--water resistance ridiculous level-- I've done 4-5 consecutive rain days without re-applying
--a little goes a long, long way. One tiny drop per link.
--comes with a neat UV light so you can see if there's still lube on the chain. Gadgets are neat
The bad
--dear lord is it expensive. It's the polar opposite of EcoSheep.
--forget trying to clean it off. Wipe the chain down between applications, throw the chain away when stretched.
--it's really expensive.

Want to buy my Pentax 35mm cameras and various Lenses ?

I stopped bothering with pictures when My parents died and I had no room in my tiny apartment for all those slides and such, so I got to thinking of the meaningless off all that stuff

in the larger theme of life, as the empire eats its Children.

<insert unsubstantiated claim of superiority, here>





;)

Thanks!! Definitely a great starting point. I don't usually ride in wet conditions, but living in a humid state like Florida, every bit of protection helps. However, I have an extra bike I plan to keep for rainy days. Sometimes during dummer months it pours every afternoon. If I can prevent it from rusting out by using a good lubricant I'll be able to ride more days per week regardless of the weather. Again, thanks!

The OP gets bonus points for handling the pushback on this thread with humor.

My first 35mm was a Pentax back in 1979! I remember leaving it on the hood of my car by mistake and driving off. It bounced on the asphalt several times. Incredibly it still worked after that!

Fwiw, you can still keep some of their memories alive with those slides. Scanning them and saving them as digital files is tedious work at first but definitely worth it. A few years ago I had a friend who was a fighter pilot during Vietnam in the late 1960's. He loved photography and took a camera with him on many missions. He also took his camera during his "down time" with his buddies. He had a box with close to 400 color slides.

Several decades went by and he had forgotten about the box. One day he and I got to talking about photography and he mentioned his old box of slides. I offered to scan all of them for him so he could at least view them on his computer screen. After a few weeks I completed scanning all his slides. It was like traveling back in time! I was seeing that era from his perspective. He hadn't seen these images since he took them back in 1969! It was beyond awesome! Many images were of him and his buddies being themselves; drinking, cars breaking down, partying, etc.

A few weeks ago my buddy passed away due to heart issues. I am happy that his kids at least got a chance to see a glimpse in the life of their father during the war. Someday his grandchildren will get to see these images as well I hope.

The beauty of pictures is that you are capturing an instant in time.

Oh, boy....here we go again.....
:popcorn

I never tried popcorn.

Yep.

And I have a Nikon EM that I received as a high school graduation present. Still wondering if it'll be worth something someday.