Three Lubes from Rock N’ Roll Lubrications

This little piece of trivia also means that your bicycle is a really efficient static electricity producer. As you ride your bike, it’s tossing out negatively charges ions like candy from a parade. In turn, the dirt on the ground is positively charged and is pulled up onto the bike to replace the negative discharge. In nature, physics like balance.

What this all means is that the dirt is going to stick to whatever is most sticky on the bike and unless you tend to dribble sports drink all over your frame, your chain is the stickiest thing on your bike. So what you need from a lube is not only lubrication for your chains’ links, you need something to protect it from all those marauding positively charged dirt particles.

Rock N’ Roll Lubrications founder Mark Patterson knows this kind of thing because he’s a petroleum engineer and a former pro bike racer (a rare combination) and he used his rare knowledge to formulate the finest line of bicycle specific lubes on the market. All Rock N’ Roll chain lubes are designed to clean and lube at the same time by penetrating deep into your chain and floating dirt particles to the surface where you can wipe them off (it’s a participation sport). Rock N’ Roll lubes then create a protective membrane to keep out new dirt and keep on lubin’ the chain.

It all sounds good in theory but the proof is in the puddin’. I’m not the best at cleaning my chain. My life is too hectic to care and I tend to ride my bike hard and put ‘er up wet so I expect a lot out of my lube. It needs to last for several rides and not collect too much dirt. I tried out three of Rock N’ Rolls products:

Extreme Chain Lube

- Formulated specifically for off road bikes, the extreme worked great in mud and dust. I followed the instructions and laid it on thick (don’t drip it on like oil) and it certainly left the chain clean and my chain ran nice n’ quiet for several rides (and stayed clean too). It’s interesting stuff. Price: $5.99

Gold Chain Lube

– Rock N’ Roll’s newest product. Touted as being good for any type of riding, the gold seemed to do everything that the Extreme did only it seemed to last even longer. This is probably the best all around chain lube that I’ve used. Price: $7.99

– Keeping your cables nice n’ slick is to shifting what, well… you can insert a metaphor here. The Cable Magic uses the same principles as the chain lubes to keep your cables clean and sliding nicely. I’ve never had much problem with my cable and housing (unless I end up racing in a rain storm) – the big problem I have with my brake cables is the build up of sludge in that silly little noodle piece that guides V-Brake cable (yes, I’m still riding with V-Brakes on my onie). The true test for this Cable Magic was to see if it could de-gum the “noodle”. My rear brake had been getting pretty stiff so I dumped about 1/3 of a bottle into the noodle and out came a thick black ooze that looked a little like the inside of a smokers lung. My rear brake ran smooth as silk for about 10 rides until I needed to repeat the process. Much better results than I’ve had with any other cable specific product I’ve tried. Price: $5.99