Real dinosaur juice

[johnridley]

I've been lubricating my bike chain with various dry or semi-dry lubes; mostly DuPont teflon+wax, and I tried a can of Boeshield recently. It was $14 for a tiny little can of Boeshield, but hey, folks swear by the stuff, they say it's wonderful and it lasts a long time and is quite waterproof.

Rubbish. It's hardly better than the DuPont stuff, which is $5 for a huge spray can.

Yesterday I put actual 30 weight motor oil on the chain again. It feels SO much better now. I think I will probably just stick to plain old oil, since I've pretty much given up on riding the gravel roads around here. I can stay on the pavement and even though it's 2 or 3 more miles each way it only takes about 5 more minutes because I can ride it so much faster, and it isn't trying to shake my bike apart.

Comments

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

I will say that the dupont spray is a heck of a lot faster and less messy. I can lube a chain with it in about 10 seconds. With oil I hit each roller and put a drop of oil on each one, taking probably 2 or 3 minutes.

The "less messy" is when riding - a chain lubed with oil is essentially black pants smudges waiting to happen, but it's fairly neat to put on, with no drips (the way I do it). The Dupont spray kind of goes all over but mostly on the chain when applying, but it doesn't attract as much dirt and is more like a grey pants smudge waiting to happen.

Unless you ride a bike with a chain guard, pants smudges are just par for the course.