rekmeyata

My experience has been 4 to 5 applications, but each application extends the frequency of relubing. Not sure what it contains or how it works, all I know it does work. It doesn't remain as clean as a waxed base lube such as Rock N Roll, but if you wipe the chain off after every ride the chain remains fairly clean, but even with Rock N Roll you were still suppose to wipe the chain down after every ride.

Duragrouch

Mixed feelings. Grains of dirt, if not held in place by a thick or sticky lube, should get flung off when riding at high speed, or turning the crank backward even faster, at the tight bends at the rear derailleur rollers. Heck, I use one of the thicker lubes, 90 weight gear lube, and fresh after lubing, there is still some flung onto the rear rim, so plenty of centrifugal force to do that. (Perhaps I should wipe down my chain after lubing.) But any dirt that remains, I'd wonder if any merit to wiping down. My lube gets kinda pasty after about 600 miles, but I don't think wiping it down will improve things, what matters is the lube between and inside the links. I ride in dry and faily clean conditions. The black pastiness of lube after about 600 miles, is due to very fine suspended metal particles in the lube, forming a (colloidal?) suspension. I know this because, after using an on-bike chain cleaner with mineral oil, I dip a magnet in the fluid and all that black sludge gets pulled right out of solution, sticks to the magnet. My point being, dry lube should accumulate less dirt, and either dry or wet lube, I'm not sure the merit of wiping down the outside. Unless it's water and you're trying to speed drying by reducing the amount of water. I'd be curious if any of the lube or chain makers have done tests of chains in various states, wiped down versus not wiped down.

Thank goodness for on-bike chain cleaners, they really speed things up. However they do nothing for the big pasty buildup on the derailleur rollers, cogs, and chainrings. I do miss how clean those all stayed when I wax-lubed.

rekmeyata

I get no flung oils on Dumonde or on the previously used Rock N Roll, the only time I ever got flung oil was using wet lubes. Neither of those two lubes I just mentioned got pasty, unless you don't wipe it down after every ride and let it go for several rides then they might. I had that problem with ProLink ProGold lube though, it felt a bit sticky when I wiped it down after each ride, I would have hated to seen what that would have been like after a few rides.

All lube companies that I have ever had and read from their instructions say to wipe down the chain after every ride, I assume the lube manufacture knows what they're talking about, vs what I might think otherwise, so I follow their directions. Even on my touring bike, which when touring with a load is rough on chains, I getting so far 7,500 miles on the chain, everyone else I have spoken to that had and used touring bikes for touring, averaged only 2,500 miles, (some only got 1,500, some got more), so I think I sticking with Dumonde Tech Lite! Once I saw that mileage on my chain starting to exceed well past 2,500 miles I switched all my bikes to Dumonde.

I had heard of Dumonde before but that was from forums, but I really learned about Dumonde from first hand reports from a couple of touring guys that were touring together, they claimed they averaged 10,000 miles on their chains, and I think they're probably correct, because my chain is almost 75% used up, but I'm using a lower quality chain, when it goes kablooey a local bike shop in town told me of a much better chain to use, but I can't recall it exactly, I think it was KMC X or something, but they claim it should last 25 to 50% longer then the lowend one that came on my bike. So should I decide to do a cross country trip, a new chain using Dumonde should take me all the way and back without having to replace it.

choddo

not sure I’d call ptfe a plastic. Those are mostly carbon and hydrogen based polymers and ptfe is carbon and flourine. Whether that makes it more or less of an environmental hazard I wouldn’t like to bet, but I’m reluctant to put it or the earlier mentioned MoS2 on my chain. Don’t really want to put graphite or graphene on there (partly as the latter is damn expensive) but might have to as phase 2 of this wax experiment.

cyccommute 

Dumonde Tech’s SDS is less enlightening than any SDS I’ve ever read. Everything is marked “proprietary” and what you can read is not helpful. It uses a fatty ester which is just a fat where the OH part of the acid has been replaced by some alcohol group. Likely they have something that causes the ester to polymerize on the chain when exposed to air. I don’t think it contains Teflon because that wouldn’t be proprietary and wouldn’t aid in the polymerization. Esters can polymerize which where “polyesters” come from. Essentially, you are putting a golf shirt on your chain. Can’t say if that is good or bad.

cyccommute 

Yup. Polytetrafluoroethylene is a polymer which is what “plastics” are. Right there in the name. It can be molded and reshaped. PTFE isn’t an environmental hazard but the precursors and some forms of flurocarbons are environmental hazards. Once made into the plastic PTFE, there’s not much that will break the polymer down as it is a very inert material. You can heat it over 250°C and it will fall apart but that’s cooking it pretty hard.

A “plastic”, by the way, is any of a very wide range of materials made from organic chemicals that can be molded and shaped. They fall into two fairly broad classifications of thermoplastics and thermoset plastics. Thermoplastics can be melted and reformed endlessly…plastic drink bottles, plastic film, the coating on cable housings, handlebar tape (perhaps), etc.

Thermoset plastics can be molded but once they are molded, they can’t be reformed. Tires are thermosets. The material used to make disc pads is thermoset plastic…specifically a phenol/formaldehyde resin which many people know as “bakelite”. Epoxies used as the matrix for carbon fiber is thermoset plastic. None of the thermosets are amenable to recycling because they can’t be melted and reformed. They also tend to cross link and keep on cross linking for as long as the material lasts. “Dry rot” on tires is due to the rubber cross linking with age and become less elastic and more brittle. It’s even worse because as you apply heat to process the material, it cross links more.

79pmooney

Or redistribute the water that keeps falling out of the PNW skies.

Duragrouch

Let's see... lack of ample drinking water... versus chain rust. I'll take chain rust. But I heard years ago that climate change may make the PNW colder and wetter. Worse, peak summer heat is getting worse, it was 113 F in Seattle a couple years back. And the fire smoke.

Duragrouch

And we have a winner, ladies and gentleman! Phrase of the day!

Duragrouch

Thank you for that. I had some polymer chem in material science 1 and 2, recall about network polymers and chain(?) polymers and elastomers, but didn't know the difference between thermo and thermoset. I already knew plastic-composite mixes could not be recycled, but not why. I've felt for a long time that we need to greatly restrict use of those until we can develop materials or means to recycle them, not just dump in a landfill.

Duragrouch

I have to admit, the above does sound good. I will consider, both lube and chains, and wiping after each ride. Even if a chain is decent and half the cost, so replacing twice as much, the stretching wears in the cogs to that spacing and then a new chain skips. So a pricier chain and lube, lasting longer, may improve cog life.