Ultimate Bicycle Chain Lubricant Test | Best Bike Chain Lube

i bought the eight most popular bicycle chain lubricants and today i'm going to test them in the bike shop and just to make things interesting i'm going to throw in some things that i found lying around the bike shop like plain old small engine oil and a penetrating lubricant we got a lot of lubricants to test but only three of them are going to podium first test i'm going to do is a friction or wear test and how this works is a metal cylinder is captured within this arm and it is forced to run against this metal wheel this metal wheel is of a hardness that is greater than this metal cylinder and so as it turns against this cylinder it will cause wear we'll put lubricant in this cup and it is magnetized in behind the wheel and the wheel is submerged in lubricant the lubricant that provides the best wear protection will have the smallest wear scar i'm also going to be watching this digital ammeter in green very closely because a low value here indicates that the motor is working less hard to overcome friction at the wheel as i run each of these tests i will start the timer and i'll run them for 30 seconds and then after we have run the test i will measure the wear scar using this caliper the first test i'm going to get is the worst case scenario which is a dry test we'll use that wear scar as the control let's remove the cylinder and find out how bad the damage is that's warm okay let's let that wait a minute okay so what i've learned is that the wear scar on an unlubricated cylinder comes in at 8.14 millimeters the first and most expensive lubricant i'm going to test is dumontec classic original it is 16.92 for 4 ounces it says it penetrates plates and protects for exceptional performance shake well okay now i'm going to let the wheel run for a little while without any friction make sure that wheel is fully coated remove the cylinder what we have here with the demontec is a barely perceptible wear scar at 1.1 millimeters in between each of these tests i will wipe the excess off of the wheel i will degrease it and then i will take a stone and i will clean the surface free of any lubricant the next one i'm going to test here is squirt it's a wax and water emulsion and it says it's suitable for all bikes and conditions it is 14.95 shake well it does squirt [Applause] the wear scar for squirt is 6.16 millimeters the next one i'm going to test is the white lightning epic ride it says it's the best choice for riding in variable conditions it has some solids floating in it so i'll make sure that i shake it well it costs 14.60 for 4 ounces the wear scar for the epic ride comes in at 5.97 millimeters just slightly better than the squirt the next one i'm going to test is purple extreme and i'm guessing by all the extremes here that it does all of these things extremely well it says it's the most advanced bike chain lubricant and it gets 400 miles between applications purple xtreme costs 13.99 for four fluid ounces very slow to come out of the bottle this is going to take forever [Applause] with a 3.86 millimeter wear scar purple extreme did better than squirt and white lightning but still didn't beat out dumontec ten dollars and seventy cents will get you four ounces of park tool cl one synthetic blend chain lube and it doesn't make any extreme claims this looks a lot like motor oil the wear scar for park tools cl1 is 6.3 millimeters 9.99 will get you 4 ounces of muck off dry lube it says it's race quality lubricant and this is for damp riding conditions so it's really an all-round lube i like the screw-off cap yeah i like this bottle the most it has a pleasant smell the wear scar from muck off is 1.85 millimeters the next one i'm testing is rock ride epics all-purpose synthetic bike lube it cleans lubes and protects against corrosion it is ninety seven cents for four ounces that flows a lot more viscous than i expected it to looking at it in the bottle epix has a wear scar of 7.52 millimeters and that is almost to the dry control just cleaning the wheel between different tests next up is rock and roll the king of lubes this is their gold lubricant it says that it dramatically improves pedaling and shifting and you can get four ounces of this product for five dollars and 67 cents it also has some solids floating in it so i'll make sure i shake it well the wear scar for the king of lubes was 4.07 millimeters okay now we're down to the two that you might just find lying around your garage this is wd-40 and for four ounces of wd-40 you'll spend 2 dollars and 24 cents [Applause] the wear scar for wd-40 comes in at a whopping 7.78 millimeters just plain old 10 w 30 dinosaur bones it comes in at about 87 cents for four fluid ounces of this plain old engine oil allowed a wear scar of 6.73 millimeters the winner of the wear test was dumontec with a 1.1 millimeter wear scar but it was followed closely behind by the muck off dry lube with a 1.85 millimeter wear scar now in third place trailing behind by 2.01 millimeters with a 3.86 millimeter wear scar was purple extreme the clear loser and i'm ashamed to admit is wd-40 well i'm not ashamed to admit it's the loser i'm ashamed to admit that i've used wd-40 a lot on chains i've learned my lesson no more it was slightly better than just having a dry dry run the other one surprisingly though was rock ride epics that is the second worst lubricant on the wall here and then finally just plain 10w of 30 was the third worst now i'm going to do the wear test with muck off i really want to see what the wear scar is going to be after letting it dry on the cylinder and the wheel i want to see what kind of protections it's going to give in a dry state no reservoir let's see how this goes begin it doesn't sound bad because drawing low amps all right i am so curious they're not bad at all for being dry using muck off as a dry lube came up with a 4.23 millimeter wear scar i have a drill here with a carriage bolt coming out of it on the end of the carriage bolt i have mounted a chain ring and i have a perfectly cut length of chain i've got this handle that i've cut off of a bottle of fork oil and i'm going to place the lubricant into this little boat i've made and then i will take the drill and i will place the chain ring into that boat and using this marker as a guide i am going to do one full revolution and then i will immediately place this rag on it and i will do one more revolution after that start the timer as i place the drill into the cardboard box and i will spin the drill at the maximum speed for 30 seconds now with the trigger fully depressed on this cordless drill the revolution that this spins at is about 350 rpm which is about three and a half times faster than an athlete's top rpm and top cadence i'm going to take this chain and degrease it in between each of the tests and i will dry it off with compressed air our first test is dumontec this is dumontec spray pattern and now it's squirt's turn this is squirt spray pattern and now we're testing white lightning's epic ride and here we have the epic ride spray pattern which i think is a little bit more and a little bit wetter than squirt and here goes purple extreme this is purple extreme sling pattern and right now i would say it's only second to dumonds okay we're back around the park tool cl one park tool is close to and might have taken the lead from dumond for the most amount of sling okay we're back to muck off dry lube dry lube did really well in this test maybe just behind epic ride up next on the sling is rock ride epix ride epics had a high degree of sling similar to demand tech and park tool cl one king of lubes let's see what the king can do i think the king of lubes did a little bit better than dumontec cl1 and rock ride epics my dirty little secret wd40 let's see how this goes wd-40 doesn't appear to have a whole lot of sling and that's surprising to me and here's our 10th and final lubricant plain old engine oil well i didn't expect a whole lot out of plain old engine oil but i am surprised that it did better than some of the bicycle specific chain lubes now i recognize that the sling test is a somewhat subjective test so what i have done is i have grouped them into three different groups the ones that i think performed poorly the ones that i think did fairly well and the ones that i think did the best in the test the lubricants that i think performed poorly were dumontec original park tool cl1 regular small engine oil and rock ride epics they have the highest sling pattern and also they highly saturated the cardboard even after sitting overnight i can still feel that they are quite greasy the ones that i think performed fairly well were wd40 purple extreme and rock and roll gold after sitting overnight the lubricants have penetrated deeply into the cardboard and they are not greasy to the touch the lubricants that i think did the best in the sling test overall were white lightning epic ride muck off dry lube and then finally squirt there was some penetration and after sitting overnight they are dry to the touch but squirt has a raised feel to it it's very bumpy and i can feel the wax in this lubricant now the sling test really wasn't all that fair to the dry lubes and so i took the dry lube that had the most residue i guess the wettest of the dry lubes that feels weird to say and i loaded it on the chain and i put it through the sling test after allowing it to dry and none of it slung off during the sling test and so we can assume that white lightning's epic ride and squirt would have no sling as well a mountain bike drive train is an open system and mountain bikes are operated in some of the harshest and dirtiest conditions and so having a lubricant on your drive system that picks up and holds dirt is not a good thing at all and so i want to know how much dirt each of these lubricants will pick up and pull into the system and i've designed a test to figure that out for each lubricant i have printed two black rectangles on a sheet of water resistant adventure paper using a fixed amount of lubricant i will paint the bottom rectangle of each of the sheets with the lubricant i will then take each sheet and i will use 30 mils by volume of this sand and i will pour the fine white sand across the rectangle evenly distributing it after the paper is sufficiently loaded i will drop each sheet three times from a height of two inches we'll see just how much is retained by the black rectangle the first one i'm testing here is rock ride i'm going to paint it until i can see that it's just been evenly coated and that's it starting with 10 mils now we bring it over here and i scoop out 30 ml of sand and just evenly distribute it across until it's well and coated and i don't see black anymore now we'll lift it up and drop it from a height of two inches one two three times that's how much rock ride epics held and we just throw away this paint brush because we won't be reusing that next is regular 10 w30 motor oil and we drop it one two three and there we have the amount of sand retained by 10 w30 motor oil next lubricant is park tool cl1 one two three and that's how much sand is retained by park tool cl-1 next lubricant dumond tech there we have how much sand is retained by dumontec our next lube is the king of lubes rock and roll gold how runny that is wow i almost got one coating after one pass that is impressive now for our three drops one wow that was a lot fell off the first drop two and three and that's how much sand was retained by rock and roll gold the king of lubes let's see how purple extreme performs 10 mil same as the king of lubes one pass is nearly enough to fully coat it one two three and that's how much sand purple extreme retained wd-40 is so thin i wonder how it's going to do and that's how much sand wd40 retained we're getting into the dry lubes now with squirt most of these say you should apply and let dry but i'm actually going to apply them like i usually apply lube which is minutes before i get out on the trail well this is very easy to see when i have a good coat oh it's curling the paper one two and three and there is how much sand the squirt retained muck off is up next this is the strangest lubricant yet it does not want to form a uniform coating on this rectangle banana coconut what am i smelling and there's how much sand was retained by muck off the last lubricant i'll be testing in the sandpit is white lightning's epic ride it's very runny like wd-40 it's taken over the whole plate it looks like it's eating the ink and there's how much sand was retained by white lightning epic ride i went back and i did a second batch of dry lube this time allowing the dry lubes to dry as the manufacturer recommends and that's how much dirt is retained by epic ride after you let it dry and there's how much sand is retained by squirt that's allowed to dry and there's how much sand is retained by dry muck off when i actually let these dry lubes dry they performed exceptionally well with white lightning's epic ride performing the best out of all of them the sand plus the sheet of paper it was on only weighed five and a quarter grams with squirt coming in at five and a half grams total and wd-40 it hung in right there with squirt at about five and a half grams total the worst performers in the sand test weighed about three times as much as the best performers with 10 w30 weighing 16 and a half grams overall and dumontec it didn't do much better it weighed just under 14 grams followed by park tool cl1 it weighed just under 13 grams these are sticky sticky lubricants and i would not recommend them if you ride in dirty conditions for the final test what i want to do is i want to see how these lubricants perform under wet conditions and so what i've done is i've cut 10 lengths of chain that are each 10 links long say that 10 times fast i cleaned them and fully degreased them and then i took compressed air and i blew out all the water to make sure that they were dry and then i let them sit in the sun for a little while also to just make sure that they were entirely dry i then took each length of chain and i fully submerged it in each respective lubricant and allowed them to sit for about 15 minutes to make sure that the lubricant could saturate fully in behind all the roller bearings after i let each length of chain sit in the lubricant i then removed them i passed them through a paper towel one time and then i laid them on another paper towel to dry for the wet test i've got a half gallon pump sprayer i'm going to fill it up to 32 ounces each time i'm going to pump it 50 times and i've also marked on the nozzle exactly where the nozzle must be to make sure that i have a consistent spray pattern for every one of these tests the pump sprayer is a foot and a half away from the chain which is dangling from a shifter cable for each test i'm going to spray using the pump sprayer until it starts sputtering air and then i'll quit for this test i'm going to use a highly accurate scale that measures to 1 100 of a gram i will measure each length of chain before i spray them and get what their weight is and then i'm going to allow each length of chain to dry in the sun after they've been sprayed i will get a final weight and i will be able to see the difference in hundreds of grams how much of the lubricant was washed away all of these chains have now had a few hours to dry now let's see how much lubrication they lost in the water the first lubricant we tested was purple extreme it started out at 26.07 grams it's now 26 grams a loss of 7 100 of a gram as i inspect it i can also see that in its time out drying it did rust around some of the pins the rollers still look like they're well lubricated the second lubricant we tested was rock and roll gold it started out at 26.1 grams it now weighs 26.06 grams that's a loss of four one hundredths of a gram as i inspect the chain there is a little less rust than purple extreme and the rollers also look like they're lubricated still muck off dry lube started out at 26.09 grams it is now 26.06 grams a loss of three one hundredths of a gram muk off dry lube does not have any rust on the chain and it seems to be well lubricated demontech started off at 26.07 grams it is now 25.96 that's a loss of 11 tenths of a gram that is a lot of lubricant loss as i look at dumontec it does look mostly like a dry chain there is a little bit of lubricant on the rollers rock ride epic started out at 26.09 grams it now weighs 26.02 grams a loss of 7 100 of a gram rock ride epics has a little bit of rust on some of the pins and overall it looks like it's lost quite a bit white lightning's epic ride started out at 26.03 grams it now weighs 26.01 grams a loss of 2 100 of a gram as i inspect the chain this has a good bit of corrosion compared to some of the others park tool cl1 started out at 26.06 grams it now weighs 26.01 that is a loss of five one hundredths of a gram there is corrosion around some of the links and i seen corrosion on one of the rollers squirt's weight before the test was 26.13 grams and it is now 26.11 grams a loss of two one hundredths of a gram as i inspect the squirt chain i can find no corrosion anywhere squirt's kind of a sticky lubricant in my opinion it the chain resists movement at first when you when you bend it that's dangling straight down you can see that the chain still keeps some of the bins wd-40 weighed 26.07 grams before the test now it weighs 26.03 grams that is a loss of four one hundredths of a gram i'm surprised that wd-40 doesn't show much corrosion at all i think it did a really good job at protecting the chain in fact i can still see it glistening on the rollers in this chain 10w30 weighed 26.04 grams before the water it now weighs 25.98 grams that is a loss of six one hundredths of a gram also 10 w30 did exceptionally well in corrosion resistance i don't see any corrosion on this chain and i still see some wetness in the rollers for the wet test the dry lubricants performed the best as expected with squirt performing the best out of all of them it might be a little bit stiff but it had no corrosion on the chain and it didn't wash off squirt was followed closely by muck off and then there was white lightning's epic ride in my opinion this is a very thin lubricant and even though it's a dry lubricant it does wash off the chain pretty easily i found a lot of corrosion for a lubricant that's supposed to resist water and these are the lowest performers on the wet test with dumontec performing the worst it lost about 11 tenths of a gram and that's a lot of loss for a lubricant there was also quite a bit of rust on the chain rock ride had similar performance and appearance with some rust on the chain and about seven one hundredths of a gram lost but i was shocked by purple extreme i think the most because it's a lower viscosity lubricant than these other two and it lost seven one hundredths of a gram as well and that is a lot of loss for a lubricant that wipes pretty much clean off of a chain testing is complete the results are in and i'm ready to put three of these lubricants on the podium through process of elimination the first two lubricants i'm going to throw out are ones that had unacceptable wear scars that were nearly that of the dry control and those were rock ride epics and wd40 these two lubricants aren't going on my drivetrain the next two lubricants to be eliminated performed fair to pour across all of the tests i conducted here and those are 10w30 and part tool cl1 this next lubricant i really wanted to like it performed the best in the wear test with a 1.1 millimeter wear scar however it performed poorly across the remainder of the tests and that's dumontec whether it was wet sling or sand it was always in the bottom three i'm not using this lubricant on anything but an indoor bike the final five here performed well across all of the tests with maybe a weakness here and there but there are three here that performed very well on wear and friction and those were these three and out of the final three there is one that stood out above all of the rest it excelled at wear and friction but also at sling and the wet test and that was muck off dry lube that is the lubricant that i am going to use on my mountain bike drivetrain from now on and bonus it smells like banana laffy taffy it comes in a great bottle and also it's biodegradable the final two lubricants fought neck and neck across all of the different tests however in the end rock and roll gold costs five dollars and sixty seven cents and purple extreme costs more than double that so rock and roll gold gets the number two position and purple extreme comes in third later [Music] you

Channel: Simply Mountain Biking

Views: 420,371

Keywords: mtb lube, mtb chain lube, bike lube, bike lubricant, bike chain lubricant, bike chain lube, chain oil, chain dry lube, dumond, cl1, muck off, wd40, bike oil, mtb lubricant, rock ride, rockride, rocride, parktool, xtreme, rock & roll, king of lubes, muckoff, mucoff, white lightening, bike chain oil, bicycle chain oil

Id: FbFNrnQ4QUo

Length: 24min 37sec (1477 seconds)

Published: Fri May 14 2021