Green Oil lube

jswba

Anybody tried this Green Oil lube yet?

http://www.green-oil.net/home10.html

C+ (I think) gave it a good write up but I was wondering if anybody here has used it and whether it's as good as the less environmentally-friendly stuff?

dennisn

I'm a road rider and have been around quite a while(some might say too long) and have
used, probably, most of the lubes out there. I have never found one that I would term
as "better" than any other. They are lubes with a label on them that says they are for
bicycles. They might be oil based or wax based or whatever based. Everyone that I have tried has kept the driveline quiet when used with some regularity. I have used one type and then another(for no real reason other than it was availalbe) on the same chain in the same week and lo and behold it still worked. When I need a bottle of lube I buy the one on the shelf that catches my eye. Is this geen stuff any "good"??? It's a lube - how bad could it be??? Didn't mean for all that to sound sarcastic, but to me it's just another
chain lube(although it's a pretty bottle and if you're concerned about your "carbon
footprint" this could be the stuff). Won't make you go faster, give you more power, or
make any of your components last longer than anything else.

Dennis Noward

zaynan

Green Oil is wonderful.

Made in the UK, no petrochemicals used - I can't see a reason why you would buy any other type of oil.....

jswba

I'll give it a go. (To Dennisn: no, it didn't come over as sarky; thanks for your response)

robbarker

"Green Oil's formula is a trade secret, a patent application currently being completed."

"Green Oil is manufactured from naturally occurring plant extracts, a blend of which produces a high performance lubricant. Green Oil contains no animal derivatives. "

So they're getting vats of rape seed and sunflower oil, or similar, putting it in little bottles and adding 1000% markup? Nice work if you can get it.

What's next? Campagnolo Olive Oil?

Petrochemicals will, of course, be used in the plastic bottle, the cellophane wrap on the pallets, the machines to make it, the trucks to distibute it etc etc. The effect that bike chain lube has in the context of global petrochemical consumption can not be that dramatic.

Nice colourful nursery-school label though, and a cute marketing niche.

jswba

robbarker wrote:

What's next? Campagnolo Olive Oil?

They've already done a corkscrew. It's only a matter of time....

zaynan

Petrochemicals will, of course, be used in the plastic bottle, the cellophane wrap on the pallets, the machines to make it, the trucks to distibute it etc etc. The effect that bike chain lube has in the context of global petrochemical consumption can not be that dramatic

So do you just say stuff it, lets screw as much out of this earth now while we can and f*** future generations. At least green oil are contributing something to what is needed. You probably use WD40 anyway (lights blue touchpaper!...)

robbarker

I notice that the "reviews" of Green Oil are the usual superficial rehash of the distributor's press release. None has any test of its physical properties.

It may be, for example, that whatever vegetable oils it is made from has the same performance as mineral oil in terms of reducing the friction in a bicycle chain drive system, roller penetration, resistance to being washed away, effectiveness in different temeratures and so on but I very much doubt it.

If, as would seem likely, its performance falls short, then the premature chain wear and more-frequent replacement that goes with this might well negate any overall environmental benefit. Neither of us know.

Let me know when you are ready to replace the oil in your car's gearbox with vegetable oil by the way. I will be happy to sell you a couple litres of rape seed product in a pretty bottle at £4.99/100ml.

zaynan

What's a car?

Simon the rider

Very Cynical Mr Barker!

At the end of the day, other lubes explicitly say on the back 'irritant' and some even say 'dangerous for the environment', and their petrochemical content won't break down the environment.

I beleive Green Oil is distributed by Royal Mail (who wish to carbon neutral by 2015), and they use reclaimed packaging from local businesses- not pallates wrapped in cellophane, to deliver it (shops generally don't order an entire pallet).

Green Oil has performed well in lubricating, and staying on the chain, beating petrochemical versions in tests.

Poinantly, 'the environment' isn't just about climate change.

Around half the worlds ecosystems are in decline due to man made pollution. Things like Teflon accumulate in the food chain. These are environmental problems, climate change asside.

Even sewers, where the water is treated, sometimes over flow into natural environment -like during the floods we've had the last couple of years, so not using toxic re-bottled engine oil (or 'chain lube') on your chain is actually important I reckon.

In any case, lube comes off eventually, and thousands of bottles of the stuff are produced, and it ends up somewhere. Even if it ends up in the water treatment plant, it still takes energy to extract petrochemicals and produces waste, unlike biodegradable stuff like Green Oil and Ecover.

The fact that we are still allowed to ride through woodlands, rivers, and wash our bikes off into sewers, having used petrolium lube with Teflon and God only know what else in, is mind boggling.

Just like Ecover or the Toyota Prius, perhaps their not perfectly green, you shouldn't pass off the green option as inevitably rubbish and stay in your 4x4.

Green products are necessary today, and do make a difference, and often peform well or better.

...Hope that doesn't sound too tree hugging!

dennisn

Simon the rider wrote:

Very Cynical Mr Barker!

At the end of the day, other lubes explicitly say on the back 'irritant' and some even say 'dangerous for the environment', and their petrochemical content won't break down the environment.

I beleive Green Oil is distributed by Royal Mail (who wish to carbon neutral by 2015), and they use reclaimed packaging from local businesses- not pallates wrapped in cellophane, to deliver it (shops generally don't order an entire pallet).

Green Oil has performed well in lubricating, and staying on the chain, beating petrochemical versions in tests.

Poinantly, 'the environment' isn't just about climate change.

Around half the worlds ecosystems are in decline due to man made pollution. Things like Teflon accumulate in the food chain. These are environmental problems, climate change asside.

Even sewers, where the water is treated, sometimes over flow into natural environment -like during the floods we've had the last couple of years, so not using toxic re-bottled engine oil (or 'chain lube') on your chain is actually important I reckon.

In any case, lube comes off eventually, and thousands of bottles of the stuff are produced, and it ends up somewhere. Even if it ends up in the water treatment plant, it still takes energy to extract petrochemicals and produces waste, unlike biodegradable stuff like Green Oil and Ecover.

The fact that we are still allowed to ride through woodlands, rivers, and wash our bikes off into sewers, having used petrolium lube with Teflon and God only know what else in, is mind boggling.

Just like Ecover or the Toyota Prius, perhaps their not perfectly green, you shouldn't pass off the green option as inevitably rubbish and stay in your 4x4.

Green products are necessary today, and do make a difference, and often peform well or better.

...Hope that doesn't sound too tree hugging!

Very naive Mr. Simon the rider!

Do you believe everything you read? A manufactuer simply says that this is the greatest
thing since sliced bread and because it's green and in a recycled bottle you just assume
that this is true. People will tell you a lot of things in this life so don't just blindly follow.
I'm here in the US and a former vice president - Al Gore - claimed that he had invented the
internet. Now he's pushing global warming - go figure. These green oil guys are selling a
product which may or may not be the holy grail but they are in it for the money, not to
save the earth.

Dennis Noward

Simon the rider

I dunno about that, its was the Ecologist Magazine's 'Pick of the Month', and those guys know their stuff.

If a company wants to make money in a green way - why not? I'd rather support them than an old oil baren.

I know what you mean, but some business are genuinly green.

At least its not a solar powered 'green' landmine company - I would be synical about something like that, not a genuine company who is making an effort in greening a previously very bad industry sector.

They even buy back the empty bottles for 20 - come on!

Simon the rider

No offence, but climate change theory does have the world's scientists behind it. The fact that someone lies about one thing, does not mean that everything they say is false -

espeically something like climate change with the UN, the Royal Society, the vast majority of scientists from every nation in the world, James Hanson and NASA, and countless peer reviewed scientific journals saying climate change is happeningl and man made. Climate change deniers are like the pro smoking loby of 30 years ago. See http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2007/05 ... f-science/ for more on climate change

Al Gore was probably misquoted by the pro Bush Fox network, or Sky News- don't belevie everything you hear, especially in the US. To be fair, maybe he was Vice President when the US military developed the early internet.

Anway, back to bikes! lol.

dennisn

Simon the rider wrote:

Anway, back to bikes! lol.

You got me there. To hell with Al Gore.

Dennis Noward

simon_e

robbarker wrote:

It may be, for example, that whatever vegetable oils it is made from has the same performance as mineral oil in terms of reducing the friction in a bicycle chain drive system, roller penetration, resistance to being washed away, effectiveness in different temeratures and so on but I very much doubt it.

Why? Where's the evidence? Your post does nothing but speculate why you shouldn't buy it.

If people don't have anything to contribute it's probably better if they don't bother. I too was interested in whether this product would perform as well as petrochemical-based lubes, not reading baseless negative remarks about marketing methods.

dennisn wrote:

Do you believe everything you read?

Do you always address other people as if they are a child? I can't speak for my namesake, but I certainly don't believe everything I read! I have a strong cynical streak, but if a small company develops an environmentally benign product and claims to use recycled bottles (and goes to the effort of offering to refill yours, which will cost them more than sending you a new bottle) then I'd suggest that they may at least be trying to do what they claim. I certainly won't grudge them a living if their product is genuine.

And I can't see how this has anything to do with Al Gore (and I don't want to know).

cee

Simon the rider wrote:

maybe he was Vice President when the US military developed the early internet.

pssst.. it was a bunch of europeans at the cern lab outside geneva that 'invented' the internet, if you mean by building the first automatically routing network node, then some boffins at stanford uni created the second one so that they could share scientific data easily. The US military merely spotted this and thought 'Ah...that could be useful....a network with no set route that when any one node is taken out of the equation, it can automatically find another path to the target node.'

Anyway green stuff.

There are currently noises in studies about the negative effects of turning over lots of land to grow biofuels, and biofuel products, including rapeseed oil.

for instance i read somewhere that in order to satisfy the demand for biofuels, some countries were chopping down acres of natural forest to gain the extra fields required to grow the stuff. That and the fact that it the process of making a biofuel is so inefficient, that it is potentially MORE damaging to the environment making petrochems.

THis includes all of the derivatives like oils lubricants etc....

These growers cannot be little organic farmers growing a garden full of rapeseed on their croft. They are huge industrialised farming machine, whose sole purpose is to force as much growth as quickly as possible, in order to turn a profit.

I don't think the 'green' argument is as simple as reducing our carbon footprint either. The simplest way to reduce the amount of carbon exhausted into the atmosphere is to half the population of the planets aerobic organisms (like cows and people etc).

I blame consumption more. People take more out of the earth than they put in, causing a shortage of EVERYTHING, relying on science to ensure unnaturally fast growth and re-supply of materials which we need/want.