HendersonD

I plan on doing the Transamerica next summer starting the first week of May and finishing in early August
I will certainly encounter all kinds of weather conditions across the 3 month ride
I will need to clean and lubricate my bike chain, what do you use to accomplish this when on a tour?
At home I have access to a hose, a Park Tool bike chain cleaner, Muc-off chain cleaning liquid, and scrub brushes but of course on the road is a different story
Do you use wet lube or dry lube on tour or a combination of both?

imi

Lube thread! ❤️

I use wet lube. Wipe chain with piece of towel, lube, wait a bit, wipe off. Every morning

fwiw Shimano PTF is my fave

HendersonD

Is it really necessary every morning or just a habit you got into?
I plan on doing 50-55 miles per day

staehpj1

Same here except I don't apply that often. Also I like Boeshield T9 or ProLink.

If I rarely need more aggressive cleaning I'll rinse off with a spray of WD40, but only in case of extreme need like when the drivetrain got loaded up with sand. I try to avoid cleaning with detergents or solvents as much as possible.

Charles Lathe

I started the TransAm this year with a couple of chains. They were hot waxed before I began. Every two or three days I applied some Silca Super Secret liquid chain wax at the end of the day and rotated the cranks backward about 100 revolutions. Then I wiped off what little wax was still visible. Every 500 miles, I rotated chains. I continue to rotate chains every 500 miles. I hot wax them when they come off and use the liquid wax between rotations.

I left home in North Carolina on April 11 and found lots of rain, wind, two snow storms, and not many riders until passing the TransAm racers on Lolo Pass. Of course I only passed them because they were going the other way.

HendersonD

How does waxing compare to wet lube or dry lube? I have never used the product

gauvins

I've done several months-long tours. I use Chain-L, a thick wet lube good for 500 to 1 000 kms between applications, rain or shine. I also carry another chain (Wippermann Sx10) and rotate them once per week (typically on Sundays -- I'll lube and rotate). I use ConneX quick links, which do not require tools, other than some patience if the chain is really dirty. I have occasionally cleaned chains in a solvent (gasoline or brake cleaning fluid) but I no longer see value in this.

Have fun

Steve0000

On long tours, I use a wet lubricant and apply every week, sometimes more if wet weather is met or the chain gets noisy. I use a cloth found on the roadside (keep an eye out as there is always something to pick up along the way) to wipe the chain clean. I replace the chain every 4000km so I am not looking to make it last longer by being anal about caring for it every day.
Interesting the comment about WD40. I was trying to buy some wet chain lubricant in France and one bikeshop I went to offered me a can of WD40. I don't think some of the salespeople know a lot about bikes at times.

Tourist in MSN

If you ask 100 bike tourists what they use for chain lube you will get at least 150 different answers.

Now for my answer, I used to use petroleum based lubes that were dust magnets. Quit doing that. I think the last tour I used a petroleum based oil lube was the tour when I took this photo.




Now I use Finish Line Ceramic Wax, dry version. Once or twice a week I would crank the crankset with a paper towel held on the chain. The lube was not a magnet for grime, almost no buildup of dirt. I would lube it when it sounded noisy. And carried my lube in my handlebar bag so it only took seconds to get to it. If your lube is in the bottom of a pannier, you will forget to use it when you finally get to the campsite later. (Yes,this photo is of a different bike.)




Carry some disposable medical gloves for things like bike maint and repair. I regularly use soap and water to wash my disposable gloves while I am still wearing them to clean them for re-use. I only discard them once a hole develops. For a cross country ride, I might bring between a half dozen to a dozen pairs of those gloves, they easily puncture and tear.

indyfabz

NFS=Best chain lube in the galaxy. The frequency with which I wipe down/lube the chain depends on daily conditions, including “road” surface.

Charles Lathe

It is much cleaner than wet lube, but not spotless. A website called Zero Friction has more information than most people would ever want.

pdlamb

Going the whole way across the continent? I'd use Boeshield again, but not quite the way the directions call for. Start with a handful of paper napkins (from a diner) and wipe the chain off. Apply the Boeshield, then wipe it down, then let it sit overnight. Reapply weekly, after a couple days of rain, or when the chain starts squeaking.

I might use a dry lube in the dry west (roughly eastern side of the Cascades to central/eastern Kansas). I need to re-apply a dry lube every 4-5 days, or after a day of rain. That's about how long it takes for the chain to start squeaking, IME. There may be a better dry lube than the three or four I've tried. And my daughter can hear a chain squeak about a day before I can, so trust young ears more than old folks' ears!

andrewclaus

If you can get over the "ick" factor, pick up a piece of rag from the side of the road to wipe the chain. I passed a recreational boating lake once on a weekend and I had my choice of nice clean towels that got left on top of something for the drive home.

With the dry lube I usually pack, I can go 4-500 miles in dry conditions, less in wet conditions, before it starts to squeak.

If my trip exceeds 3-4000 miles, I'll buy a new chain at shop when needed, or have a family member ship one to me along with maps, new clothing, brake pads, etc. Location may be a PO that takes General Delivery (call to be sure), a hotel in a town I plan on taking a rest day, a friend I plan to visit, or an agreeable Warmshowers host.

cyccommute 

If you are putting on lubricant everyday or cleaning the chain constantly, you are doing something wrong. Life is just too short to be spending much more than fleeting thoughts about your chain. I clean chains once before they are installed and they don’t come off again until I’m ready to change the chain 3000 to 4000 miles later. I use solvent wax lubricants…usually White Lightning…and apply them at about 600 to 700 mile intervals. I refresh after rain but the same should be done for oil based lubricants. The pictures below are testament to how clean my drivetrain is. Not many of them are from tours but this is the general state of all my chains.

About 600 miles into a tour around Lake Michigan. I did apply lubricant at about 300 miles after an all day rain ride.



Normal state of my chain. I have no idea what the mileage on the chain is but this is not a picture of a recently cleaned chain.



Dead of winter chain. You can see the frame isn’t clean but the chain is.

Library - 3391 by Stuart Black, on Flickr

Again, I have no idea of the mileage on the chain but my hands are a lot cleaner than they would be if I were using oil.

2013-07-26 08.06.29 by Stuart Black, on Flickr

Yan 

I use wet lube on tour. I tried wax based drip lubes in the past but they needed more frequent re-application than wet lube. After a couple hundred kilometers the chain begins to squeak. On a tour I don't have the energy to be lubing every 1.5 days. Wet lube gets me 3-4 days of riding.

The chain is a disposable item. I don't get why people take the time to hot wax immerse their chains. Your chains lasts longer, but by the time you add up the cost of the wax and all the time you lost, you're losing money. Take that time and do a few hours of overtime at your job. You'll come out way ahead in cash. Put it another way, the faster your entire drive train wears out, the fast you have an excuse to upgrade.

djb

Henderson, my take on chain maintenance is regularly using a rag to wipe down chain quickly whenever there is excess. Ive done lots of longer tours and while I tend to prefer a lighter lube that doesnt cause as much gooky mess, I just have a folded rag with me and wiping off the excess regularly takes only a minute, and if you do it regularly, its fast.
I also take a few seconds to use same rag to wipe jockey wheels, chainrings.

Ive never taken chains off to clean, (well, not for a few decades, too much hassle) but timely wiping that takes a minute or two or three is easy.
Its like cleaning your kitchen. Leave dirty dishes and crap around for days and its a big job, put stuff away right after using and its fast to do.

wipe chain before lubing, keeping excess down means less dirt sticking to excess--which means faster wiping next time, so less time, cleaner chain. Pretty easy.
On long trips, usually about once a week, on a rest day, I'll spend more time "flossing" the cassette with a rag, wheel on bike, I do this all the time, and again, if you keep things clean, its fast and easy to do.

At the end of the day, I'll often just wipe any excess off chain, its so fast, why not do it?

when my rag gets too dirty, I'll use my backup, always a rag or whatever found on road. Maybe need to get a new rag after a month or so.
yes, after riding in rain I always wipe down chain and stuff to get grit off. And relube a bit, but so many people overlube and make a big mess of things , so more work cleaning.

try different lubes and wiping down, see how things work. Its no different than being at home, but I'd get less into thinking you need to remove chain and use degreaser and more into regular on bike wiping down, with the regular day off more careful clean. Rags are easy to use and effective, and generally easy to get another one at some point on long trips.

I'm more with Cycco on a cleaner lube, just easier to keep things less gunky. yes you may have to apply it more often, but thats easy with clean drier lubes.--if you keep things clean that is.

have fun

Tourist in MSN

I usually find the paper toweling that is in the bathrooms for wiping off your hands after washing is perfect to hold on my chain as I turn the crank to wipe of most of the gunk. I am sure if I carried a rag for that purpose, I would end up getting black greasy dirt on my other stuff.

Or at most gas stations there is some toweling that people can use to wipe off a windshield or wipe off an oil dip stick. That works too.

djb

I often will keep a few paper napkins from places we stop at to do a quick chain wipe also. I tend to prefer a rag as cloth can be used harder and doesnt rip, so handy for getting more stuff off and staying in one piece.

BikeLite

Or fold a shop towel into 9 squares and use a square per oil...or larger squares if that is not big enough.

HendersonD

How long do chains normally last? I was under the impression I could do the entire TransAm on just one chain

HendersonD

How long does a chain normally last? Is it necessary to carry an extra chain for a 3 month tour?

HendersonD

Have you use NFS on a longer bike tour?
What makes NFS so good?

HendersonD

So you really only reapply White Lighting every few hundred miles on a longer tour?

gauvins

No definitive answer. I'd say that one chain might do, but the conventional wisdom is that an elongated chain will damage your entire drivetrain (i.e. will necessitate a new cassette and perhaps a new set of rings as well.) Claimed longevity vary from, I'd say, 1000-5000 miles. More common would be 1500 miles.

On longer tours I carry a spare and rotate them.

Better answer would be to check elongation from time to time with a decent chain checker, and get a new chain whenever your current chain is worn. (i.e. elongation > 0.75%)

stevel610 

A tip I heard once was to get pipe cleaners (craft stores & smoke shops have them) and use 1x a week to get in between each link.