by froze on Sun Apr 16, 2023 3:09 am
You are going to use your bike for bike camping, or touring, it doesn't matter. Wax for that sort of biking is trash, rain will wash it off fast, then you have to reapply it, not something you want to keep doing on a bike trip.
There are two highly popular lubes over all other lubes by a long shot for bike camping or touring, and those two are ProLink and Dumonde Tech.
Probably the best lube for what you will be doing is Dumonde Tech, not Dumonde Tech Lite, though I use the Lite version on my touring bike and have no problems, but some like the thicker non lite version better. Personal preference, that's all. Dumonde Tech will last at least 500 miles between applications, even that lube most touring people that use it still recommend reapplying it after a rain only because you might be traveling in an area far from a bike shop, so you want to make your chain last as long as possible, so you reapply after a hard rain. The bottle says to only reapply when the chain starts to get noisy, that's the guideline I follow. You must also wipe down the chain after every ride; if you wipe it down correctly, after a short while the chain should not leave much of an oily dirt streak on the rag.
I tried ProLink, but it got gummy even after wiping it down every night it would still slowly become gummy, it also lasted about 300 miles, at the end of the day I didn't like the stuff. The other problem with Prolink is that it's a thinner oil than Dumonde Tech, and that oil will seep right through a Ziplock baggie and onto whatever is around the bottle, the Dumonde Tech does not do that.
Another lube favored over any other lube except those I mentioned above, is Chain L, I didn't care for this stuff either, it was way too thick, all but impossible to wipe the chain off because it was gummy from the start.
Those are the three most favored lubes, with Chain L being a distant 3rd.
Dumonde Tech, like any other lube, it's important to follow the directions to the letter, it also takes about 5 applications for it to really set in and leave a polymer coating on the chain, once that happens, 500 plus miles between relubing is not out of the ordinary.
Riding a loaded bike puts more wear and tear on a chain, so using the right chain lube is critical; I get about 6,000 miles on my touring bike chain before it needs to be replaced.
I use KMC X8.99/X8 chain on my touring bike, I read it lasts the longest of other chains, but I haven't tried every chain on the market on my touring bike to see if that's true; I use the KMC for another reason too, a lower grade KMC came on the bike when I bought it new and it lasted a long time, so the better KMC should last even longer? That's my hope!
Anyway, chain lube is one of those personal religion type of things, there are million lubes out there and a million people will swear that the one they're using is the best. At the end of the day you need to use what you think will work best for your situation. I tried to show you what the touring world uses almost exclusively, but you might not like any of those 3 lubes, so you have to decide which is right for you.
