Squirt Lube - what am I doing wrong?

Apologies - missed this. They did test the Team Sky Hydrodynamic lube which Muc-Off market as their ultimate lube so it stands to reason that this would perform better than Ceramic (or at least you’d hope it would for the higher price).

Apparently not according to Zero Friction. I think they stated somewhere that the cheaper lube was more efficient in terms of watts saved which is crazy.
I’ll try to find where that was stated when I’m back at my laptop.

I’ve just had a look at the detailed study (link below for anyone with some free time…) and you are quite right! Bizarrely the ludicrously expensive Muc-Off Nano lube actually leads to more wear than the Hydrodynamic so you may be right on the Ceramic being another step in the right direction

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I can’t copy the exact wording for some reason, but for anyone who’s interested, go to the section starting “Other Questions Muc-Off refused to answer” and you will see the watt savings of the cheaper lube.

I just did this exact same thing. In my case, because I haven’t got around to recabling the bike and put the chain on yet, I’ve left it in the bag in a semi-sunny spot in my garage (summer here in Au). It should be well penetrated after a week or so…

The tester does cast quite a lot of doubt on the accuracy of the information though and implies that if the results were accurate it would be the most efficient chain in the world…

“A sub 3w lube would be a phenomenal leap forwards in chain lube tech, and yet here Muc-Off have it included in their NTC race chain launch brochure without even mentioning it once, it is just shown in a graph. This makes no sense.”

“When one is presenting as having the highest level efficiency testing in the world, results that do not make sense on multiple fronts to ZFC raise big (aka gargantuan) red flags.”

“Considering the wear rates I have seen with customer’s chains and drive trains on this lube [C3 Dry Lube], if it actually achieves 2.9w I will eat one my cassettes.”

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Yes! Smoove ftw! I agree its a pita with all the prep but it lasts so long, both indoor and outdoors.

My chain is 6 months old now on Smoove and hasn’t even stretched beyond .5 on my Park chain checker. (It’s not even close.) At this rate I’ll get a year+ out of a chain.

Photos? Or it didn’t happen… :grinning:

Haha… you got me there. I was just too focused on removing the mud between the rear triangle and tyres as we were getting dropped from the main group!

Damn, your description of a “tunnel of mud” sounded great.

Not had a chance to read through the full thread but…
I’ve started using squirt.
I like it so far, no noisy drivetrains or anything like that, but…
I’m having front mech shifting problems.
On my TT bike with custom chainrings I can’t get it to shift to the big ring. I had no problems even on dry chain before. Is this stuff too slick?
Also I had two major chain drops from big to small ring, resulting in the chain getting stuck (that’s on TT bike and road bike with 105 crankset).
Anyone experienced this or knows how to resolve this issue?

I doubt it’s a lube problem. If you are dropping chains then your derailleur is not adjusted correctly.

It’s adjusted perfectly right. Had 0 problems on muc-off ceramic lube and I use my bikes daily.
With the squirt, even if I move the limit screw to throw the chain far over the big ring it still doesn’t want to jump on. This is an after market chainring (PCD) and it does not have any features to help the chain shift up.

I’m not buying that your derailleur is perfectly adjusted and a certain lube would be required for it to shift correctly.

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If you like Squirt, you’ll love the new Ceramicspeed UFO lube. It seems to wick into the rollers better than Squirt and less of that black flaking and grime build up on your pulleys

Well, you were quite right.
So, from no problems for a year or so, I started having chain slippage (on both bikes) - and this is down to the lube 1000%.
The slip on the tt bike was so bad the other day, that it must have moved the derailleur cage (which is not too stiff as it uses an after market spacer to work with 56T) and on the up-shift it was flexing inwards even more.

It’s funny how some lubes work for some but not others. So much is dependent on the environment. I found Smoove to be very good indoors but useless outdoors - it was like a sand magnet. Never had a lube pick up so much sand as Smoove. It even beat Squirt (which was really bad) in that respect. Very dry here in NV (desert) and lots of sand, even in the air. Maybe I’ll give Smoove another try and try cleaning it off the outside completely next time, just leaving it in the links, if possible.

I lived in southern NM for the last two years and I never came up with a good system to deal with the sand and silt. The dirt roads and trails get pulverized into a fine silt at certain times per year.

I was using rock and roll and then hosing off my bike after every single ride. I’d blast the chain with water to get rid of the silt, and wipe it down with rock and roll several times. I’d have to do this daily.

I’m not even sure what would have been a better solution. Having to do wax dip every day would be crazy time intensive.

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Apologies for reviving a dead thread, but I see some frustration around this product that have been working great for me for last year. Wanting to share my experience, it might help someone.

I beleive the bigest point missing in the comments above is the wax needs to get INSIDE the chain - rollers drip won’t do it.

  1. Do a thorough clean before application. Chain off the bike.

  2. Put plenty of squirt the first application.

  3. Back padel alot. When you think you are done… put a bit more and back padel a bit more.

  4. Clean the excess whith a paper towel. The product is needed inside the chain. All the product that lays outside the chain is excess that can be removed.

  5. Let it dry.

  6. Reapply frequently.

This is a pic of my chain after 2 weeks of UK bad weather. In good wheather i can get 300 miles (~500km) of one application easily.

Time to time I pass a cloth impregnated whith isopropanol to clean the outside.
In big cleans I sometimes use the chain cleaning tool with isopropanol.
Only for aesthetics though.