So just use a non-lubed chain for a while & experiment for yourself. I'd love to hear your conclusions.

Ah, ya beat me by a couple of seconds sydney.

Maybe you ought to check your own comprehension switch. I used the 100% figure to demonstrate that efficiency and friction (thus wear) are polar opposites. When a system is 100% efficient, there is no friction and thus no wear. Seems obvious but perhaps you need things a little more spelled out.

I have, it worked quite nicely actually. It's a nice nickle-plated corrosion resistant chain and I didn't lube it for several months until I decided that I wanted something in there to dampen the noise. This was on my rain bike.

Sydney, I don't know where your superior attitude comes from. You've got one when you think you're right and it persists when you've been proven wrong. Is there anyone here who's your equal?

:D How can a simple question like putting grease on threads morph into something like this? :rolleyes:

Well, a bike chain is not 100% effecient and in real life it doesn't operate in a vacum. Why don't you try and dredge up tech paper that shows a bike chain wears the same in real life with and without proper lube?

Ya think?

I have no such paper, I don't know of any study. I believe I employed the phrase "under lab conditions" as well as the word "question". Allow me to try to resolve your confusion:

ques·tion
n.

1. a. An expression of inquiry that invites or calls for a reply.
b. An interrogative sentence, phrase, or gesture.
2. A subject or point open to controversy; an issue.

I have no confusion. Go back to your post about the article and effeciency. I'll just go beat my head against the wall while you pedal around in your lab vacum. :rolleyes: Maybe you can dummy into the door to the real world.

By the way, it's spelled vacuum.

According to the book Bicycling Science, lube has a negligible effect on a brand new chain running on large sprockets (>20Teeth). But on slightly worn chains or with a small cog it makes a difference, something like 10%. This is from the chapter on power transmission.

I don't think lube is intended to protect a chain from corrosion so much as from wear due to the friction of the rollers.

In my experience, a clean dry chain is a whole lot better than a dirty lubed chain. But I dunno how long a dry chain would last...

A small amount of grease on the chain rollers would work just fine, especially white grease or something fairly viscous. You can get a "needle tip" for grease guns.How long does a chain even last, one summer?

One summer?!

Keep it cleaned & well lubed w/ drivetrain properly adjusted and you should get several seasons out of it. I've been on the same chain for 3-4 years. No sign of wear on cogs or rings. Shifts great & still nice & quiet.

I'm a roady though. Maybe atb chains take more abuse from grit.

But hey, chains are cheap. Replace 'em every month if you want.

how many miles? I'm usually to 3 thousand by August. I might get two seasons out of a chain depending on how lazy I get.

buy high heat grease it's red and it won't melt when it's summer and it's real thick so it won't just rub out of the bearing house. oh yeah WD-40 is good for parts to not rust or sqeak alot but not for bearings because they will just finnaly just wear it away and then start grinding down.

Help me here... If your chain is really 100% efficient, their can't be any friction between the rollers, pins, side plates, etc. of your chain. Why was noise developing? I expected all of these parts to be in some kind of harmonic suspension... So let's review: Your chain is 100% efficient, therefore no friction. No friction= no noise and no wear. Yet, somehow it got noisey and started bothering you, so you lubed it to stop the noise (but NOT to deal with friction and wear). Sounds kind of silly to me. I think I'll keep lubing my chain to "dampen the noise."

Use that Mobil One grease, it's awesome stuff.
Use just a little in the right spots, and will work great, and there will be minimal to clean off with WD when you want to reapply.

Argh. Apparently it was a mistake to use the 100% thing as an example.

It's common in physics to first consider an ideal system and proceed from there to the real world. I wasn't saying a real-world drivetrain is 100% efficient. I was considering the ideal drivetrain which is to first illustrate the state we are approximating with our actual bicycles.

In doing so we see that as efficiency goes up, so too does friction (and thus wear) diminish. That's all.

Jesus Christ. Can you read? Do you bother to read the rest of trevor's post, or even the sucessive posts?
I guess the answer to both questions is no, and that you're a dumbass.

First, I suggest you read the rules for posting on this site. Second, learn to articulate your position well enough so that you don't have to rely on profanity and name calling. It strikes me as funny to seriously advocate running a bicycle chain dry and then explaining that it had to be lubed to dampen the noise. Now that I repeat it, it's even funnier! Excuse me while I laugh for a while and you think up some more clever names to call me....

Read ALL OF trevor's posts about his dry chain experiment. Then I think things will be clearer, you appear to have missed some of the KEY details of this experiment...

OK. Sorry. I was a bit too sarcastic. Practically everyone who mountain bikes has personal experience with running a chain dry and feels (as well as hears) the difference after they lubricate it. I can't just ignore what actual experience has taught me because of the results of a lab test. To me, when you describe the noise that needed to be dampened, it's just what happens when there is no film of lubrication between the moving parts and you have metal riding on metal. I may be over-simplifying, and I am not any kind of physics expert, but (until now) I never thought there was any question about whether or not to lube the chain--just a lot of opinions about what works best.

But what if you can never find the door?

You obviously have this problem....

You don't need to grease bolts ; they are designed to work when dry.

What's wrong with oiling the chain, it's only a one-speed bike it hardly makes any difference to the efiiciency.

Try to ride a bike that has been sitting out in the paddock for 10 years and has a completely dry chain and you'll find out why they need to be lubricated.

Why don't you go to www.parktool.com and bone up so you can give better advice. I think they know more about it than you seem to.

Correct and it also works as anti-sieze to a degree.

Take that same bike and imagine it was built up without the use of grease on any of the bolt threads. Wonder if you could actually turn any of those bolts now.:rolleyes:

I still don't reckon its a good idea to grease the axles on the threads ; it attracts dirt just where you don't want it - near the bearings. Maybe OK if you have sealed bearings, not a BMX.