Guitar Ted Lube-Off: Summer Session Winners

An example of the Rock & Roll Gold Lube effects

With a long over-due report here, it is time to give my impressions on how the Lube-Off went over the Summer months. The contenders were all pitted against each other on the gravel roads here in Iowa with the over riding conditions being dry, very dusty, and even more dusty. The only time this wasn't the case was at the Dirty Kanza 200 where it was wet and very muddy. That said, I only used the previous champion, DuMonde Tech, at that event and in those conditions. Otherwise it was all dusty, dusty, and more dusty. Did I mention the dust?

So, two lubes didn't do so hot in these conditions, which in my opinion, are some of the most severe gravel road conditions you will find when it is dry. I'll move on to wet conditions later here, but or now, the two that didn't work very well were the Boesheild T-9 and the ProGold lubes which attracted dust like a magnet. One thing to keep in mind here is that with the ProGold lube, reapplication does clean off the dust and will work to keep your chain lubed without further buildup, but you will go through an awful lot of that product using it when it is dry and dusty. The Boeshield just collected more dust, and re-lubing only made things worse, so it was out of contention almost immediately.

The two that did well were the "champion" of my past Lube-Off, the Dumonde Tech, and the Rock & Roll Gold lubricant. Both of these kept dust at bay, but let me dissect the testing a bit more so you can understand why I am still going to give the crown- so far- to DuMonde Tech.

An entire season's worth of use on DuMonde Tech

The Rock & Roll test bike was the Twin Six Standard Rando, which was a test bike for RidingGravel.com. I liked the bike so much, I bought it, but without the wheels. So, when that happened the bike went into mothballs until I can afford to build my wheel set that I want to put back on to that bike. Then I switched over to using it on my Black Mountain Cycles bike. The thing is, I had to start from scratch again with the BMC.

That meant that the entire test time was limited with the Rock & Roll Gold, but with the DuMonde Tech, I was able to use it for an entire season on a new drive train on my Raleigh Tamland Two. The time included my stab at Gravel Worlds, which was really dusty, and a different type of dust at that than what we have around here.

The results for the Rock & Roll looked promising, but I was noticing some "gunky" build up towards the end there, so it is still hard to say that it would have out done the DuMonde Tech. It is also worth noting that DuMonde Tech was used on my Fat Fargo in super-dusty conditions at Odin's Revenge and held up really well.

So, I'm still giving DuMonde Tech the edge, and that using the heavy lube, when I should have used the "light" stuff. Which I feel is quite telling, especially when you consider that the DuMonde Tech guy has been asking me to try the lighter lube to make things more on an even playing field with the other lubes. Obviously, even the DuMonde Tech meant for wetter conditions still out does the Rock & Roll Gold, but I hesitate to throw the Rock & Roll out of the test yet since the testing wasn't quite the same in terms of "one bike" for a longer period of time. Oh well..... I'll pick that up where I left off next Summer. I'll also add another lube then to the mix.

Now it's on to wet lube testing over the Winter. Stay tuned......