Among the pool of lubes, greases and other bike care liquids, Biomaxa stood out as the most unique. They also have what’s arguably the best lube applicator we’ve seen, making it super quick and easy to get the oil on your chain with no slips.
What makes it unique? It’s 100% and uses home grown New Zealand sheep lanolin and Manuka oil as its primary ingredients. The formula is environmentally safe, and it extends to their grease, too. They even have a lanolin based chamois cream…
The product is used by a couple of New Zealand national champions, including mountain biker Kim Hurst. The chain lube comes in ergonomically shaped little bottles with a chain guide slot and drip applicator. Just rest it lightly on the chain, at an angle, and the lube goes exactly where you want it, avoiding the occasional slips and drips off to the sides. They recommend applying it the day before you plan on riding, wiping the excess off and letting it dry overnight for best results. Then, it should last a good long time before you need to reapply, keeping your chain clean and quiet.
The grease is safe for carbon frames and can be used for hubs, bearings, pedal spindles, BB threads or anything else that typically gets greased. The tube will fit on standard shop grease guns, too, but has a built in spout shape that should work for most home mechanics.
The chamois cream adds Manuka Honey, also, which has claimed healing properties. Two version are available, one for rides under four hours and a longer lasting “pro” version for rides over four hours.
Dumonde Tech recently added Pro X lube and grease lines that are low- or no VOC, allowing them to be sold (legally) in California, where the original could not.
The Pro X line includes a Lite and Regular chain lube, a liquid grease, freehub oil, a freehub grease and an MR grease. The latter is for anything from bearings to shock and fork internals to suspension pivots. Shown above are the only two that are VOC exempt, the others have <3% VOCs. Both the Regular and Lite are dry lubes using the brand’s MRCC (Micro Resistant Complex Compounds) formula borrowed from motorsports. It creates a thin but long-lasting film bond on the chain that they say reduces friction and won’t wash off, yet doesn’t attract dust or dirt for a long lasting improvement to drivetrain smoothness. They even say these are better than their original formulas, which were highly touted.
Ride Glide claims to have the only military spec grease to pass the stringent 23827 standard for anti-corrosion. The grease is hydrophobic, has high load protection and low centrifugal drag.
The assortment of lubes also repel all forms of moisture while penetrating into metal parts quickly. The Extreme Lube adds fine Molybdenum particles to fill in surface imperfections on the metal parts and create a smoother surface for higher pressure impacts and activities. It’s a similar formula to what’s used for their aerospace lubes. A Fall/Winter lube is formulated to keep flowing and moving smoothly even when the temps drop, but stay clean like a dry lube. The Summer dry lube works similarly, but is for temps above 55ºF, staying liquidy enough to penetrate into the chain rather than just coat it.
Squirt’s wax emulsion lube has added a low-temp chain lube option for both wet and dry rides when things get really cold. They modified the congealing point, letting it stay fluid even when most of us are curled up inside.
The last method of protecting your bike’s metal parts comes not in the form of a liquid or grease, but vapor. Zerust’s VCI (Vapor Corrosion Inhibitor) uses a special lining inside their bike storage bags that creates a non-toxic vapor that disperses and coats your bike with a microscopic vapor layer that inhibits rust and prevents corrosion from spreading. It’s safe, having been approved for use in food environments, and as soon as you open the bag and start moving your bike, the vapor evaporates from your bike leaving no residue.
The bags range from $29.99 to $69.99 depending on size and whether you want to wrap your bike up or have a zippered pouch. The material is water proof, but the zippers aren’t. The vapor producing materials will last for up to five years, and they won’t harm sensitive electronics.
