"John Morgan" wrote in message
news:VhCPa.1190$zy.1043@fed1read06...
Sand has attached itself all over it. sparingly. but enough to make me
concerned. is sand crunching through the Chain and rear derailer safe ?

I live in a very dry, dusty climate and I find this situation unavoidable.
Now if it's coarse sand you're talking about, you should definitely clean
the drivetrain. I think even if I cleaned my chain after every ride it
would still sound gritty... so instead I use WL wax lube after every ride.
I don't THINK my parts wear out uncommonly fast, but then again, I've
never
lived anywhere else to compare.

-John Morgan


John, I live in the very same climate and have recently changed my lube. For
a long time I was using Triflow, but a year ago the LBS turned me onto White
Lightening(WL). The wax lube is nice, easy to apply, keeps the chain looking
good, sheds dust and dirt pretty well ... EXCEPT when it gets wet! High
mountain rides around here usually have a couple of little stream crossings,
runoff from some snow 30 feet up the trail. In almost every case after
crossing a creek, the chain begins to go to sh#t, and gets worse as the ride
goes along. My riding buddy recently had the same experience on a ride we
did, he had a WL chain, mine was my back-up bike with TriFlow, and despite
very little maintenence of this chain, it performed great.

I'm back to TriFlow on the both mountain bikes, it picks up a little more
dust, but performs better over the long haul. I'll save the WL for the road
bike where I avoid crossing streams

--
Craig Brossman, Durango Colorado
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