General: What is your favorite chain lube? Why?

What is your favorite chain lube? Why? Some of the chain lube out there is downright expensive! Are there any that you feel are just crap?

Personally I like what used to be called just White Lightning, but it seems they have made variations of it now with a new name each.

Could it be that you & I Greg are the only ones who lube our chains?
I read recently somewhere that a noisy chain is sign that it’s stretched out; so if every time it gets noisy it gets replaced, then I guess chain lube is now obsolete.

2.- 5th from the top... “A good sighn of a streched chain is when it gets noisy”

http://velospace.org/forums/discussion/439/chain-tensioners/#Item_21


Didn’t see that one coming...

I wipe my chain down after every rain and lube it about once every other month max. I'm getting lazy these days

I recently got this stuff called Dumonde Tech, the main guy at the LBS here said it's the best on the market so I thought I'd try it. I guess it's solvent based which is supposed to be some huge advantage? I was old you apply it once to a CLEAN chain then ride til it gets noisy and apply it again and you should be good for like 500 miles, I haven't had good luck tho. The second time I applied it my bike turned into an oil slick on wheels like it was overly lubed. Maybe I'm doing it wrong...

I'm a fan of Finish Line dry lubricant with Teflon. I used Tri-Flow for years and got used to cleaning grotesquely dirty chains, and the Finish Line was a revelation. Clean the chain, put on a drop of lubricant per joint, then wipe the chain down. It works beautifully and doesn't built up significantly between cleanings. Have several bottles of White Lightening given to me by a friend, though, so I'll give that a try the next time.

wax lubes like white lightening are great you just have to realize that you can't keep piling that shit on like you can with oil. especially on rode bikes, i've seen seen more than one person who put so much on that the spaces between the cogs on his cassette were entirely filled with wax! and then those people wonder what the hell is going wrong with their drive train!

If I understand it right, the original White Lightning was a mixture of alcohol & Teflon particles. (Thats why all the white stuff was in the bottom before you shake it up)
Step one was that you spread the stuff on your chain while running the drive train, then quickly wiped it off before the alcohol evaporated, and in so doing so wiped away contaminants and old lube.
Step two was that you reapplied a small amount again to the moving drive train. This second application to a “clean” chain left behind the lube once the alcohol evaporated.

I never had “build up” because I didn’t soak layer over layer without wiping off the excess. Also because its lubrication is “dry” dust and things don’t stick to is as with a “wet” lube.

generally this means you are using way too much. in my experience they are a good deal cleaner than oil lubes.

Its NOT my on my bikes, its on CUSTOMERS' bikes.