With the chain cut apart, the centre roller can be removed, showing how it needs to be kept lubricated Dilute 1 part XCP CLEANER & DEGREASER with up to 10 parts water (select according to strength of cleaning power).

There’s no industry standard for chain lubes, but in general, a wear scar of 2mm is usually considered very high in lubrication testing, whereas one of 0.4 is good. As a rule of thumb, a wear scar of one millimetre or more would usually indicate that a lubricant isn’t performing as well as it should. This graph shows the overall performance of the lubes, and the ten that performed the best in these tests… The lubes are decanted into a beaker before being tested to allow them to de-gas, but that can mean that waxy and oily lubes can’t really be directly compared. But still, XCP stood out as having a truly brilliant wear protection level, actually matching that of gear oil. Reason six: A chain lube will reduce friction – few road riders would notice the difference, but race teams use O-ring chains (except on some low-capacity and classic bikes), and they use chain lube, despite having the budget to regularly replace those chains. The testing of Scottoil showed it worked very well when you remember that it’s a constant loss system. This isn’t really designed to coat the outside of the chain plates, which while only cosmetic, can get a bit rusty if you haven’t got the delivery just so. Still though, they really do keep the rollers well lubed with little hassle. There are other chain oilers available too, like Tutoro, PDOiler and Loobman, but I don’t have any experience of these. Anecdotally, automatic oilers tend to be popular among their owners.

Key features

Optional) Lubricate and/or protect surfaces with your preferred XCP Professional spray, as necessary. While drive chains aren’t kept in a bath of lubricant, a decent lube will – to some extent – help to reduce this damage, especially where it creeps under the unsealed roller. Due to the formula’s unique flow properties, an ultra-thin film is laid down on the chain, with minimal ‘pooling’ of liquid and high fling resistance.

You should always apply lube to a clean chain, so it’s good to know how easy it is to get these lubes off. I first tried washing them with plain water, then sprayed them with paraffin, then finally I hosed them off. Würth High Performance Dry looks really good, and did well across the board but it struggled in comparison to the others in the wear and weld tests. How much that matters will have to come down to your own judgement, but it did have better wear protection than the Muc-Off. Use a cleaner designed for O-ring chains, or simply paraffin (kerosene in the US). Be careful with stiff-bristled brushes as they could damage the O-ring, and don’t use a jet-wash to blast away the grime – it’ll push past those seals and blow the factory grease out of the rivets.

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Reduces Friction, Maximises Power: The powerful formula is built to withstand extreme pressure, reduce friction and minimise the long term effects of wear, maximising the power output of the chain All of the lubes performed fairly similarly, though S100’s White Chain Spray 2.0 stood out as having the best extreme pressure characteristics of any of the spray products. In fact, it was better than chainsaw oil. The powerful formula is built to withstand extreme pressure, reduce friction and minimise the long term effects of wear maximising the power output of the chain.