Water soluble chain lube= rusty chain?

sasolshares

After using Muc Off chain lube the last few years, I decided to try their C3 Ceramic Dry lube. Lots of review comments about it washing off at the slightest hint of rain. I thought that may not be such a bad thing as you can just give the chain & gears a blast with a hose to clean. So after a couple of months of cycling in dry, but misty Wales weather, I have a brown chain and cassette and sticky links. Un-impressed given the price of this lube and I doubt if it would prolong the life of my chain. I wonder whether the formulation is hydrophilic, so in drawing moisture from the air, may be worse than riding with a dry, lube- free chain?

secretsqizz

aye.. nobel prize for science on the way --- water + metal = rust. whodhathunkit

cougie

How often have you applied it ? The review I've read was getting about 175 miles between applications.

sasolshares

About 50 miles between applications because the chain looked pretty dry. Never had this problem with Muc Off ordinary dry lube. Their wet lube wasn't bad but attracted plenty of gunk so chain needed cleaning every 200 miles or so.

sloppyschleckonds

Have you tried wiping it down and lubing after every ride?

sasolshares

SloppySchleckonds wrote:

Have you tried wiping it down and lubing after every ride?

Yes tried that before last Thursday's ride (misty day yet again), put bike away and 3 days later chain & gears all brown and chain doesn't bend until you rotate a few revs to free it all up. Perhaps time to go back to traditional oil based lubricants.

cougie

Is this the one that you have to cure with the UV light ?

Sutton_Rider

I've been using this stuff for over a year (on the summer bike) and found that the chain has to be very clean before applying the it, then left for at least 4 hours before riding. (The UV light doesn't cure it, the light is just so you can see where the chain has been lubed, bit of a gimmick). My summer bike was lubed, as above, before winter and stored in a dry garage, when I got it out a month or so ago I noticed slight rust marks, but I cleaned it again, re-lubed and the rust marks have gone. I do get less noise from the chain using this lube and it seems to increase the chain life also the chain doesn't go black so quickly. But as has be said 175 miles between lubes.

dannbodge

I used to use the C3 dry lube, I always used to put it onto a clean chain and had no issues with rust or noise but did have the issue of longevity so switched to the "hydro-dynamic" lube.
However, after reading through this: https://zerofrictioncycling.com.au/lubetesting/
I don't use it any more and switched to Silca NFS. So far I'm 100000% more impressed with the Silca than the Muc-off stuff.

philbar72

its a pretty average lube to be fair. I just use squirt. it looks like you've come on your chain, but other than that its very reliable, and according to one of the racier websites that talks about saving wattzzzzz its up there with the decent stuff all the dullards that time trial use.

grenw

Works fine over the summer on my mtb. Been using it for years. Should be a piece of cake for it to handle road bike use!

keef66

sasolshares wrote:

SloppySchleckonds wrote:

Have you tried wiping it down and lubing after every ride?

Yes tried that before last Thursday's ride (misty day yet again), put bike away and 3 days later chain & gears all brown and chain doesn't bend until you rotate a few revs to free it all up. Perhaps time to go back to traditional oil based lubricants.

I suspect the timing is important. Putting the bike away with a wet chain is expecting a lot from that kind of product.

When I've been out in the wet at the very least I wipe down the chain which removes most of the muck and water and redistributes a film of lube. If I'm not too cold / wet / knackered I'll then lube it too. Having tried just about every cycling specific chain lube over the years I now just use cheap and cheerful 3-in-1 oil year round.