All About Lube

I am going to get through this entire post without making one lube joke. I swear.

BikeCommuters.com recently had an interview with Mike Kaelon from KHS Bicycles which was all about chain lube. We all, hopefully, know that it is important to clean and lube your chain on a regular basis. Now that winter is over we will have a much easier time doing this. Here is an excerpt from the article that I found interesting:

“…you really have to work at keeping the wax from building up on the outside of the chain, which can prevent any new lube from getting inside the links. If you use wax lubes like most people do, which is to just apply the lube and forget it (which is why most people use those lubes, because it doesn’t get dirty), the wax starts to build up, and eventually all you end up doing is putting new lube on top of the old build up, instead of getting it worked down inside the links.”

I just bought a new Shram bike chain recently and the thing came loaded with a wax based lube. I guess I have to clean the heck out of it before re-applying more lube.

Written by Chris Belsole