I have always preferred wax based lubes because they don’t attract dust here in AZ. But I am real picky on my chain maintenance, which is why wax based works so well for me. When I finish almost every ride I put my bike in a stand and pedal backward with the chain squeezed in a terry cloth rag. I do this until the dirty residue on the rag is pretty minimal. Then I apply Rock & Roll Gold (White Lightning in past years) by holding the nipple of the lube bottle slightly against the chain and squeezing out lube while pedaling the chain backward. Then I repeat the backward pedal with the chain in the rag for just a few rotations to remove excess lube. Next I rub the chain between my fingers and repeat this last step until there is no lube residue on my fingers. I only want lube on the inside of the links and none on the outside. Sounds complicated but this process only takes about 3 or so minutes once you get the hang of it. My chains are always sparkling clean and highly functional. I have also used DuMond Tech Lite and followed this same process with similar success. But I found wax based overall kept the chain a bit cleaner. If I get lazy and don’t clean my chain after every ride, I still get 60-70 miles before the chain gets a little bit noisy.
I’ve posted this before, but for a long time I never met a bike shop mechanic that preferred wax based lube. When I asked for a wax based lube they sort of turned up their nose a bit. They seemed to hate wax stuff. Finally the guy that used to own Shade Tree explained it to me. He said that they used to get a lot of bikes into the shop with chains really gunked up with wax because people don’t maintain their chain regularly. It was a real PITA to get those drive trains working properly without “ungunking” the chain. He was the rare bike mechanic that thought there was nothing inherently wrong with wax lubes.
TLDR, when you ask people what is the best chain lube, you also need to ask how they maintain their chain. These two things go together.
Bob
