bike grease

[luigi49]

What do you guys use?

I used car grease in my garage but I know there is a specialized grease for bikes. 

[kendallf]

Are we talking hubs and bottom brackets here?  I use standard moly based automotive grease.  I know there are bike specific ones but I'm not convinced they're necessary. 

This brings me to mention, I love reading bike and bike maintenance recommendations from shops and web sites oriented toward racers or at least racer wannabes.  It's easy to take something frugal like a bike and turn it into the most clownishly spendy habit imaginable.  :-)

For chains, there are zillions of fancy lubricants, wax based, wet, dry, yada yada.  For my chains, including the fancy race bike chain, I use motor oil in a squirt can.  Yeah, it attracts more dirt than a dry lube.  Shrug.  I also chainge my chains far less frequently than bike shops would recommend, but have yet to notice much of a down side.

[YK-Phil]

To clean and remove all the gunk and old grease, my tools are an old but stiff toothbrush and WD-40, LPS-l, paint thinner or kerosene, never gas! A good degreasing solvent or brake spray works faster but they are usually more expensive, so it is a bit more work to use paint thinner or WD-40 but you achieve the same results. Be careful to never put any solvent inside the freewheel or freehub mechanism. For grease, since most of my riding is in Yellowknife in winter, my usual grease is Arctic snowmobile grease. Anything else, especially in the freewheel or hubs, will just stop working below -15. Depending on where you live (wet, sandy, etc.) you may have to repack your hub, or not. I never had to do that myself. For the chain and other moving parts, I just spray them with a solvent to remove gunk and dirt once every few months, then approximately once a month just apply 0w30 engine oil with my finger.

[Russ]

theoretical ideal lubricants:

marine wheel bearing grease for anything with ball bearings (wheels, BB, headset, pedals)
most other greases break down in the presence of water. that is VERY BAD for bike things, which are generally unsealed. you don't need snowmobile grease because nobody else here is as nuts as phil (I say this lovingly), and FWIW my regular grease worked fine in -20F the few times we had that this winter.

oil of choice for anything with bushings (der. pulleys, chain, any pivots, cables/housing are kind of like a linear bushing)
I like Triflow for this. It's pretty inexpensive and available everywhere. We have Boeshield T9 at work which I've been using recently, and that's fine too although I hate the smell and it's a little gummier. Stay away from wax- or Teflon-based lubes except for cables/housing. They don't wear as well (important for chains) and are sticky through constant rotation (important for pulleys). If you want to really cheap out, you can cut motor oil with mineral spirits (thinning allows better penetration, all the actual lubrication is done INSIDE a chain)

antiseize for all threaded fasteners and for friction interfaces w/dissimilar metals (e.g. aluminum seatpost in steel frame)

any grease for friction interfaces with similar metals (e.g. alu seatpost in alu frame, steel bar & stem). I use the same marine wheel bearing grease b/c it's pretty cheap and I don't need yet another type of lubricant in my toolbox. 

assembly compound with those fancy little beads for friction interfaces w/ carbon or anything else that's slipping with the bolts @ proper torque. overtorquing is not the answer...

I have a solvent tank at work that I use for cleaning parts, but you can make degreaser by boiling orange peels or something like that if you need it. Usually though I just use a clean rag to wipe away any grease, or apply new oil over old and let that loosen up some of the dirt to wipe away


but really you can get by just fine with the marine grease for basically everything and any oil thinned to the right consistency for the oil applications spec'd above. You definitely don't have to buy fancy "bike specific" stuff (sarcasm quotes b/c many bike greases are purported to be exactly the same as hardware store waterproof greases)

[PantsOnFire]

Clean Ride for all my chains. 

Regular Mobil 1 synthetic grease for BBs, hubs, and headsets (but ONLY after the factory lube needs replacing) and only because that's what I use on my car's steering linkage. 

[fodder69]

Hmm, I am almost done with a tub of boat trailer bearing grease that I bought 25 years ago. How's that for frugal?

Of course, on my chain I only use the finest lube. Or whatever was in the last grab bag I won at a race, either way.

I recently redid my hydraulic brakes and Shimano wanted 25 bucks for 2oz of their special mineral oil!!! I used baby oil and it not only works great but it smells nice too!

[GuitarStv]

I use white lithium grease on my summer bike and snowmobile grease for my winter bike.

[Sydneystache]

+1 for marine wheel bearing grease. My cyclist friend introduced me to it and couldn't believe the tub was less than $10! I use white lightning for my chains though. More than $10 at 1/50 of the volume :/

[conradpdx]

Personally I try very hard to stay away from anything bike specfic when it comes to maintaining my bicycles.  The Marine grease is what I use for all bearings.  As for the chain and non bearing connections, I don't recomend oil - it attracts too much dirt and dust and you will spend too much time cleaning your chain, likewise WD-40 should not be used except for cleaning the chain since it is not really a lube.

I highly recomend using a lube for another chain specific tool, one whose use is a dirty environment...and that is chainsaw blade lube.  Works great, doesn't attract dirt and dust and it comes in a spray which beats drops at each link with other chain oils.

Been using both since I was a paperboy as a kid and have never had any problems with either (I've been a nearly daily rider for over 30 years).  I try very hard to stay away from anything bike specific.  If it's bike specific it costs double (be it clothes, tools, or consumables) than it probably should. 

Don't get me wrong, I do use motor oil for lubing my gears, but they are 40+ year old Raleigh 3 speeds (one Superbe and one folding Twenty) and a drop or two of good old 30 weight motor oil every month keeps those old Sturmey Archer internal gear hubs clicking away.

[Russ]

Chainsaw bar oil is thick and sticky, designed to stick to the guide bar and prevent wear b/w the chain and the bar. It won't penetrate rollers, which is the entire point of chain lube for a bicycle. Aerosol spraying the outside of a chain is also not the way to get whatever oil you're trying to use inside the rollers.

[conradpdx]

Who sprays the outside of the chain? You aim it to the inner side at the rollers and the top between the links.  The air pressure from the spray bottle helps force it in the chain, and helps blow any left over gunk you didn't get when cleaning out.  I don't for a second think drops are any better -  or any worse.  Really the only way to do it right is to remove the chain and soak it for awhile.  But chains are cheap, and unless you're soaking it alot....you'd be better off just getting a new chain.

Honestly, I don't think the "what product" and the "how" matter nearly as much as the when.  A regular schedule of mantainence  is way more important than the small details.  Most lubes will work for most the parts on a bike.  Unless you're racing or doing really heavy loads the stresses really aren't all the great when compaired to most machines that require lube.

And I am mistaken I went and checked.  I use Permatex Chain Lube - not bicycle specific, but works.  I bought a case of it years ago (when a hardware store was going out of business), and still am only on can number two after years of my own bikes and half a dozen or so flippers a year.

[luigi49]

Who sprays the outside of the chain? You aim it to the inner side at the rollers and the top between the links.  The air pressure from the spray bottle helps force it in the chain, and helps blow any left over gunk you didn't get when cleaning out.  I don't for a second think drops are any better -  or any worse.  Really the only way to do it right is to remove the chain and soak it for awhile.  But chains are cheap, and unless you're soaking it alot....you'd be better off just getting a new chain.

Honestly, I don't think the "what product" and the "how" matter nearly as much as the when.  A regular schedule of mantainence  is way more important than the small details.  Most lubes will work for most the parts on a bike.  Unless you're racing or doing really heavy loads the stresses really aren't all the great when compaired to most machines that require lube.

And I am mistaken I went and checked.  I use Permatex Chain Lube - not bicycle specific, but works.  I bought a case of it years ago (when a hardware store was going out of business), and still am only on can number two after years of my own bikes and half a dozen or so flippers a year.

Where exactly are the rollers? Are hyou talking about the rollers on the chain links?

[anastrophe]

Honestly, I don't think the "what product" and the "how" matter nearly as much as the when.  A regular schedule of mantainence  is way more important than the small details.  Most lubes will work for most the parts on a bike.  Unless you're racing or doing really heavy loads the stresses really aren't all the great when compaired to most machines that require lube.

+1 just do regular maintenance and cleaning and you'll be fine, don't get so caught up in the details. I have a giant tub of blue grease I've been using for years and I don't even know what it is anymore but my bike doesn't seem to care as long as I keep the snow and salt and mud off it.

[Sydneystache]

Don't get me wrong, I do use motor oil for lubing my gears, but they are 40+ year old Raleigh 3 speeds (one Superbe and one folding Twenty) and a drop or two of good old 30 weight motor oil every month keeps those old Sturmey Archer internal gear hubs clicking away.

Raleigh with 3-speed Sturmeys are such collector items nowadays. Same with folding Peugeot. Heavy for my taste though. I know the "steel is real" crowd will argue it is about the legs, but an 11kg folder is easier on the back than the 20kg ones.