Well, I would venture that one need not put a lot of oil on, but of course some folks like to soak their chains.  For what it's worth I've heard no complaints about our usage of this stuff, from either staff or bike buyers.

My experience with wax lubes is that they need constant replacement when it's wet, but they certainly are cleaner to work with. We sell a lot of decent bikes, but we sell far more cheap bikes to folks that may or may not pay attention to bike maintenance. So if a bike goes out with oil that will stay on it the chain might last that much longer.

On my personal bikes I'm still using up an old gallon of 30W motor oil.  A bit messy, but I have well-lubed and happy chains.  I've just reminded myself of the "chain lube wars" on cycling discussion groups, so I'll go no further.  ;)

Mark Rehder - Coordinator
re-Cycles Community Bike Shop
http://re-cycles.ca

On 23-Nov-10, at 12:27 AM, Gervase Gallant wrote:

Chain saw oil is pretty terrible for your chain... major grit and dirt magnet. Also makes working on the bike extremely dirty work.

At our coop, we use Finish line wax lube, usually dry. Here's the wet version: http://www.dickssportinggoods.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3965288&cid=CSE:GoogleProductSearch

A little goes a long way.
Gervase Gallant

Des Moines Bike Collective: Commuter Corner http://dsmcommutercorner.wordpress.com/


--- On Mon, 11/22/10, Mark Rehder <mark@re-cycles.ca> wrote:

From: Mark Rehder <mark@re-cycles.ca>
Subject: Re: [TheThinkTank] Lubes, choice of and sources.
To: "The Think Tank" <thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org>
Date: Monday, November 22, 2010, 8:14 PM
We get various stuff donated to us
(I've come to despise WD40), but in terms of what to buy we
took a tip from a local shop and use winter-weight chainsaw
oil. The reasoning is 1) it is fairly thin, 2) it breaks
down a bit better into the environment, and 3) one can use
it in old internal-gear hubs (apparently perfect for
Sturmey-Archers).  :)

We buy gallon jugs and pour into plastic oil dispensers.

We used to get our bearing grease donated to us by a
wholesaler, but that stopped for some reason (never quite
found out why) and so now we just buy a pail of high-temp
grease from Canadian Tire and put it into smaller
containers.

>From a Green standpoint, I once asked my dad (a
metallurgist) about using a non-petroleum-based formula. He
said one could use grease made from whatever veggie source,
but that it would break down very quickly due to the heat
from friction. So while it would work be prepared to
overhaul your hubs every couple of weeks (or more).
:P

So it seem that as long as one is dealing with
metal-on-metal the petroleum-based stuff seems to be a
necessary evil. That said, perhaps some bright minds may
find an organic solution to this some day.

Mark Rehder - Coordinator
re-Cycles Community Bike Shop
http://re-cycles.ca


On 18-Nov-10, at 12:08 PM, Brian wrote:

Hello everybody...

Would you please share your thoughts concerning your

choice in lubes you use.  Specifically:

1) Chain lube.  We use Prolink - expensive but

good performance.  Would like a more "green" solution.

2) General oil-like lube, we use Triflow.  It's

cheap.

For both, we buy bulk and refill the smaller bottles.

Could you please share your experiences and

strategies?  Perhaps some sort of automotive lube
instead of triflow?  Anybody currently supported
directly by a lube company?

Brian
SLO Bike Kitchen Co-founder
www.slobikekitchen.org
San Luis Obispo, CA

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