Best lubricant for bike

billyhead

Just looking for recommendations. I was thinking of getting some lubricant that Halfords supply and was wondering have others used it. Also is 3 and one oil any use on bikes?

bcmf

No more then a couple of drops of 3 in 1 on the chain as its a good oil but very sticky and will attract lots of road grit.
Most on here use one form of Finish Line form the range.

Jawgap

I use Chain-L - long lasting, doesn't mucky up and smells great!! (proper oily smell!)

Pricey, but doesn't need re-applying that often.

Diarmuid

Finish line dry (red) for road bike, wet(green) for the commuter

Keep_Her_Lit

FTW ...



[Reminder: it's still Friday]

dvntie

Diarmuid wrote: »

Finish line dry (red) for road bike, wet(green) for the commuter

+1

Donelson

Keep_Her_Lit wrote: »

[Reminder: it's still Friday]

That's no excuse :mad: Shame on you!

manwithaplan

Spent stupid money on a bottle of Fenwicks stealth lube. It's so good it comes with a pipette.

Wibbs

Keep_Her_Lit wrote: »

FTW ...



[Reminder: it's still Friday]

Just in case peeps don't see the joke, WD40 is not a lubricant, though so many think it is. Well it is for a while, but the WD 40 stands for Water Displacement (formula) 40. It's great for that and as a penetration fluid(oooh er missus!) and has some anti rust properties, but it's not a good lube for anything like long term use and will dilute, even expel other lubricants that may be present in freewheels and the like. Then again I come from a time when some peeps used to dip their chains in molten paraffin(candle) wax and leave it to dry off. Actually worked quite well. I also knew a guy who used various gun oils on his bike, so you never know...

feck sake lads

Jawgap wrote: »

I use Chain-L - long lasting, doesn't mucky up and smells great!! (proper oily smell!)

Pricey, but doesn't need re-applying that often.

yeah i seen that oil recommended on another forum , so how do you rate it, they say its good for a couple thousand miles :rolleyes: and it keeps the chain clean.
btw where did you buy it from.

feck sake lads

Anyway i use pro gold on the chain find it class keeps the chain clean .
on everything else i use probably the best oil on the planet Tri Flow.

Seweryn

I use this lubricant for my chain and I like it very much. I used the finish line Wet before, but after the switch, my chain looks a lot better and lives longer.

Bigus

I use a drop of very very expensive fully synthetic engine oil , but because I use maybe 2 or 3 mls out of a 5000 ml container it works out at cents per use, works a treat for cents and has the benefit of million s of euros of research behind it to operate under extreme conditions and stress.

decdon

dvntie wrote: »

Diarmuid wrote: »

Finish line dry (red) for road bike, wet(green) for the commuter

+1

+2

CillianL

Never use a light or aerosol lubricant/oil on a chain such as WD 40, as they're only good for cleaning and are too light for the demands on a chain. 3 in 1 is a cheap vegetable oil so its not suitable either.

I use TF2 Cycle Oil lubricant by Weldtite on my chain for my racing bike, its very good, as well I've found heavy lubricants such as chain saw oil are quite good though they're sticky so make sure you clean the chain regularly.

Surveyor11

muc-off for me - lasts well for my commuter bike that's out in all seasons. Can gather a bit of dirt though as it is quiet sticky.

Jawgap

feck sake lads wrote: »

yeah i seen that oil recommended on another forum , so how do you rate it, they say its good for a couple thousand miles :rolleyes: and it keeps the chain clean.
btw where did you buy it from.

I like it - it runs smooth and clean. I'm not sure about the couple of thousand miles claim. I tend to de-lube and re-lube every 1000km or so, with regular wipe-downs and light re-applications in between.

If I get a right drenching I'll de-lube and re-lube.

I've used Fenwick's, Muc-Off, Greenline and 3-in-1 in the past and in terms of running I'd be hard pushed to notice a difference between them. What is very noticeable though is that the Chain-L runs very clean compared to the others including the ironically named "Muc-Off"

I picked some up when I was in London, but urbanhunter sell it online.

tomasrojo

CillianL wrote: »

3 in 1 is a cheap vegetable oil so its not suitable either..

3-in-1 is not a vegetable oil. It's a mineral oil. I'm not sure where this canard started that it's a vegetable oil (I think even Sheldon Brown's site repeats it), but it's easily countered by reading the label on the bottle: "Caution: contains mineral oil". Or looking at the Wikipedia page.

According to that Wikipedia page, it contains a small amount of citronella oil, but it doesn't render it unsuitable for use on bikes.


It is very light and washes out after a shower, so in that sense it's not suitable for a chain.

doozerie

I usually use Finish Line Wet Lube on my commute bikes, out of laziness more than anything else as it lasts quite a while. It gets mucky though, and I don't like that aspect of it - makes it messy and trickier to clean off than some oils. My laziness exacerbates the problem as I slap on some more oil every few weeks (or after very wet weather) without giving the chain a proper clean, making it even harder to clean next time I finally get round to it.

On my non-commute bikes I use ProLink, made by ProGold. I find this works very well. It lubes the chain well and doesn't tend to attract much dirt (it does attract some dirt though, despite its claims not to). Every one or two rides I just wipe down the chain (and jockey wheels and chainrings) with a cloth, put on more ProLink, spin the cranks a few dozen revolutions, wipe off the excess, and I'm done. It's very quick and easy, I just can't be arsed doing it for my commute bikes too. One bottle lasts ages (many months), unless you try to spray it onto the chain 'cos you waste loads of it that way 'cos it goes everywhere. ProGold sell a syringe-like applicator that is perfect for applying it to each link of the chain and results in minimal waste. That applicator should work equally well with any very light lubricant in fact.

G rock

Can you buy pro gold online anywhere? Using a wet lube at the minute and I'm not a fan of how dirty it gets.

And like doozerie, my laziness doesn't help

billyhead

doozerie wrote: »

I usually use Finish Line Wet Lube on my commute bikes, out of laziness more than anything else as it lasts quite a while. It gets mucky though, and I don't like that aspect of it - makes it messy and trickier to clean off than some oils. My laziness exacerbates the problem as I slap on some more oil every few weeks (or after very wet weather) without giving the chain a proper clean, making it even harder to clean next time I finally get round to it.

On my non-commute bikes I use ProLink, made by ProGold. I find this works very well. It lubes the chain well and doesn't tend to attract much dirt (it does attract some dirt though, despite its claims not to). Every one or two rides I just wipe down the chain (and jockey wheels and chainrings) with a cloth, put on more ProLink, spin the cranks a few dozen revolutions, wipe off the excess, and I'm done. It's very quick and easy, I just can't be arsed doing it for my commute bikes too. One bottle lasts ages (many months), unless you try to spray it onto the chain 'cos you waste loads of it that way 'cos it goes everywhere. ProGold sell a syringe-like applicator that is perfect for applying it to each link of the chain and results in minimal waste. That applicator should work equally well with any very light lubricant in fact.

How many bikes do you have. You must hav a bike for every day of the week:)

MB Lacey

Diarmuid wrote: »

Finish line dry (red) for road bike, wet(green) for the commuter

Why do you use dry for the road bike and wet for the commuter? Why not dry for both?

doozerie

@G rock, I bought ProLink from Ribble in the past but they don't seem to list it on their website now. It is available from bike-discount.de and via amazon.co.uk too. The former charge delivery, I haven't checked whether the latter deliver to Ireland but if they do presumably they'll charge delivery too. Also, from the US, JensonUSA sell it in large quantities but shipping, import, and VAT duties will all add up for that. And last, but certainly not least, Echelon Cycles in the UK used to sell it - back in 2010 they charged £32 for a 32oz container of it. I've ordered stuff from Echelon Cycles over the phone a few times in the past and I've found them very good to deal with.

@billyhead, No, I don't have quite that many bikes. My road bike of 20+ years ago got further and further relegated over the years to become my current Frankestein single-speed/fixie commute bike. My MTB of 15 yrs ago got relegated to a utilitarian bike-stand equipped commute bike which I occasionally use to tow our child trailer. My road bike of 10 years ago got relegated to my "winter bike" after I treated myself to a new road bike a couple of years ago. There is little value in secondhand bikes, so from an economic (and others) point of view it has made more sense to me to turn an old bike to some other use than try to sell it off.

seamus

MB Lacey wrote: »

Why do you use dry for the road bike and wet for the commuter? Why not dry for both?

The wet lube allows you to ride through a week of ****ty weather without having to clean and re-lube at the end. The dry will be dead by the end of the first day.

So even if you use dry on the road bike and get caught up in a crappy day, you only need clean and re-lube at the end of that day. Presumably, like most of us Diarmuid does minimal wet riding on his good bike

I've actually found this stuff really good on the commuter, it's the option for lazy bastards like me. I will switch to the wet lube in winter, but it turns the chain into this black oily mess which drives me mental and paints me in black marks if I even look at the drivetrain.
I will confess to using the 1-step lube on the road bike, only because I've been too lazy to get my hands on some dry lube.

Seve OB

feck sake lads wrote: »

Anyway i use pro gold on the chain find it class keeps the chain clean .
on everything else i use probably the best oil on the planet Tri Flow.

G rock wrote: »

Can you buy pro gold online anywhere? Using a wet lube at the minute and I'm not a fan of how dirty it gets.

And like doozerie, my laziness doesn't help

I've been using Pro-Link gold too.

I bought it a couple of months back on Ribble, and if memory serves, I got a huge bottle for something like £7. I got one of those chain gang cleaners also and use that to clean the chain, then apply the Pro-Gold lube.

doozerie

Some fuel for the fire (all "what's the best lubricant" discussions eventually descend into an argument, it's the law or something), here is a comparison of wet versus dry lubes that makes the case for dry lubes in wet weather. They use only two products, on different bikes (one fixed-wheel, the other not, by the looks of things), and for what might be a short period, all of which cast serious doubt over any conclusions they draw, but I know a guy whose friend's sister's cousin's aunt reached the same conclusions therefore they must be true.

..is it Friday yet, I wish it was Friday