Wet vs. dry - the yin and yang of chain lubricants

There is nothing worse in riding a bike than a flat tire and a squeaky chain. I discussed going tubeless to avoid the former, now it's time to discuss the matter of lubrication to avoid the latter.

First of all, let's hope you're not putting canola oil on your chain but you use something better. By better, I don't mean imported Italian extra virgin olive oil. I mean the proper chain lubricant.

During the last few years I've been using two different lubricants - Chain-L and Dumonde Tech Original. Now some of you might still think that it doesn't really matter what chain lube you use. You would be mistaken.

I'm not being paid to review here anything. The products mentioned were purchased with my own money and all I do is to share my opinion.

To save you time and get to the point, let me say that these two lubricants are like fire and water - completely different. How different? See for yourself:

As you can see, these two are the yin and yang of bicycle chain lubricants. Dumonde Tech is the typical dry lube - designed to dry out quickly, leaving a dry film that does not attract much dust. As such, it's perfect for dry and dusty conditions. Unfortunately, it wears out relatively quickly and requires more frequent re-application. Fortunately, thanks to its low viscosity it can be applied in a short time and it will dry out almost immediately. Just don't try to use it on a rainy day as it gets flushed out by water too easily. In fact, it's good to re-apply it every time after your chain gets soaked.

In short, I can't imagine a more perfect lube for dry conditions, if only it lasted a bit longer and didn't smell so bad (use it outdoors, not in your kitchen!).

On the other hand, Chain-L is a wet lube, meaning it creates an oily, sticky film that will last long time and won't get rinsed off by rain. Unfortunately, it also means that it attract dust like crazy and after riding on a dry, dusty road your bike chain may look like a breadcrumb-encrusted fillet. Because it's more viscous, it also takes more time to apply as you have to wait for it to soak into chain links.

Overall, it's a really good lubricant for those wet, soggy conditions. Just make sure you wipe off any excess from outside of the chain links. This will minimize dust collection and reduce overall mess.

Now you may think that you will have to buy both and apply them whenever weather changes, but I don't think this would be necessary. In general, if you don't like too much mess and avoid riding in rain, use something like Dumonde Tech. But if you ride in any weather and don't want to re-apply lubricant often - go with a wet lube like Chain-L. Switching from one to another makes no sense (unless you swap chains) but if you want to, in general it's no problem to use a wet lube over a dry lube but not vice versa.

I use Chain-L on my all-weather commuter bike. This way I'm ready for any conditions. I just need to remember to clean the chain once a while to avoid dust collection. I use Dumonde Tech on my recreation/exploration bike since I ride it mostly in the summer and on unpaved dirt roads. When necessary, I re-apply the lubricant every time the chain gets wet.

Back to the humid reality

"I'll be back" - it's what I said. Here I am after a short disappearance when I spent quality time with my family in Northern California. And it turned out that early July that place was clearly the best place to be. When Boston was cooking at 100F (38C) and Los Angeles was getting crispy in a 115F (46C) heat wave, the coast north of San Francisco has barely seen 70F (21C) - in the afternoon. Because early morning we needed heating on in our house since it was only 54F (12C) outside.

Now you will understand if I say that I would clearly move there if I could...

Meanwhile, when I was gone, the town of Arlington went through a small transformation - the Lime Bikes arrived! This dockless bike share system turned out to be quite popular initially, but we'll see how popular it would be after one year.

I see these green bikes everywhere in our town, but unfortunately, sometimes they end up being a bit abused. I guess, because of their dockless design, you can picture these bikes being dumped in a ditch and that's happening already. Hopefully, such cases will remain infrequent.

I have high hopes for Lime Bike and I wouldn't want them to share the fate of dockless scooters - now undergoing regulations in San Francisco and other cities. They are seen as "dangerous" and "disruptive", even though (truly dangerous) dockless cars roam freely through our cities and occupy astounding amount of space:

Anyway, summer is here, which means weather is unpredictable and you never know if it's going to be sunny or rainy. The only predictable thing in Boston in July is humidity - it's always high, which makes me not want to ride my bike this week. On the other hand, at least we don't have problems with wild fires in New England. It's just too moist for that.

Meanwhile, Greece is on fire, Sweden is on fire, Southern California is bone dry and at high risk, Arctic is melting and generally the whole world is roasting. But no worries. Thanks to our brilliant administration who proclaimed global warming a hoax, things will get better very soon. We all will soon be riding dockless bikes on car-free streets!