New chain lube

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gbb

Legendary Member
Location
Peterborough
My two punneth...once the coating is gone...or at least going, oil, wipe, oil, wipe, nothing else makes much if any difference.
I've tried so many systems, down to almost every other day cleaning with an airline to blast residue and oil out of the links, soaking in oil, drip drying the excess off, wipe wipe wipe. ...plus other lubricant types and intervals, all sorts.
Sounds ridiculous but it was done in minutes but over the day while at work.

Didn't make any appreciable difference to chain life, I used to record mileages religiously. Now I just wipe, oil, wipe. A chain is a consumable. Care for it reasonably, expect replace it.
 
Location
Loch side.
Aluminium chainring.


Yes and no, the black is partially/primarily aluminium oxide from the chain, a particularly hard and therefore effective material if you want to grind something away.
 
Location
Loch side.
Aluminium oxide (corundum) is white. The black colouring in chain oil is steel particles. At the molecular level a substance doesn't display the same properties it does in bulk. Steel molecules ground from the chain during use present as black. But so does aluminium particles. In bulk they're both silver in colour. The fact that aluminum particles are also black we can see from the black water that comes off rim brakes, in its un-oxidised state. I think the black we see in chain oil is primarily steel because we know that aluminium chainrings last a very long time and chains don't, thus the wear swarf has to be heavily steel-biased.
 
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