A new chain lube concept is up on Kickstarter: a graphite lube that is applied from a solid bar. I’m curious to hear EC member opinions, and hear any intel about the product.
CHA lube (thecha.cc) is the company’s webpage. It’s a good sales job… clean, effective, ready, cheap, and the applicator is 3D printed so it must also be sexy .
On one hand, I gather that graphite chain lubes are not uncommon in motorcycling and industrial applications, and work well in dry conditions. On the other hand, the products in the motorbike space are aerosols that help the graphite penetrate the chain.
Is a simple solid applicator too good to be true?
My questions include:
Could graphite in a bar really get into the inner parts of the chain without help?
If a lube is simply rubbed on the outside of the chain, and has no way to penetrate, it’s useless.
A solid lubricant is the best type of lubricant for chains, but it needs to be liquid when applied in order to penetrate the chain.
Chain lube is needed inside the chain, not outside. Any lube outside the chain will depending on the type of lube, either a) rub/fall off or b) provide a lovely sticky layer for grit to attach itself resulting in the chain grinding away your cassette, chainrings etc.
I’ll be completely fine to be proved wrong, but looks to me like a product made by someone/people that don’t understand the mechanics of a bike chain.
Can’t even call this one snake oil, it’s just a completely wasteful scam. At least maybe you could make some nice art or write a short story with this product after the extra investment in some paper.
Maybe a shrewd shop can use this to sell more chains from Amazon.
As far as the motorcycle products, most motorcycles are running sealed O-ring chains so you really are just lubing the seals and protecting the outside of the chain.
Hey! Yes you are correct, you cannot rub a solid on the outside of the chain and have lubrication where you need it deep inside chain. Proper penetration down into the pin is something even a number of wax drip lubricants can suffer from. The other (in my opinion - scammy) rub on products out there have needed to provide an option after rubbing on to get lubrication from outside to inside chain - Wend wax gave you a solvent do dissolve in - so you were in effect mixing your own wax drip on the go in a faffy and expensive process (when you can just buy pre mixed wax drip…), and Simplyfast lube cube sell you a heat gun to melt in- a process fraught with many issues.
This will be just another crack by different people to try to fool cyclists into parting with their money. Many cyclists don’t spend much time thinking about the mechanics of chain lubrication, so when a company markets a product saying it does X and saves time vs doing Y - a certain % will always be fooled, and their drivetrain lifespan will suffer.
There are scammers and scam products in practically every market segment imaginable. Rub on lubricants are a classic case in this space.
Thanks everyone for your responses. I echo the appreciation for subject matter experts, and I’m happy that my Spidey senses aren’t completely numb after years of social media bombardment!
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