Cycling UK Forum

The purpose of Molybdenum disuphide and Teflon is to lubricate contacts that slide rather than roll. Rolling always involves a bit of sliding too, but I take my cue from the lubricant manufacturers' datasheets and reserve greases with such additives for the parts of my bikes that mainly slide against one another.

There's a sort of interesting glimpse of the way the market works here, especially within the bike trade. There's a specialist grease which, by chance, is probably ideal for pedal cycles. As it was formulated for a bulk application, it's sold that way. Would this be ideal for all new bikes? Sounds like it. Are bike manufacturers interested? I imagine not: why make new bikes last? If the big boys in the trade aren't interested, hardly fair to look to the retail trade, especially a typical LBS. Any chance of somebody buying the smallest size sold and repacking it in smaller, cycle-size tubs or tubes? It's taking a bit of risk with demand. What sort of organisation might do that?

Cyclists would have to C-L-U-B together. Not much chance of that nowadays, I imagine.

CJ wrote:The purpose of Molybdenum disuphide and Teflon is to lubricate contacts that slide rather than roll. Rolling always involves a bit of sliding too, but I take my cue from the lubricant manufacturers' datasheets and reserve greases with such additives for the parts of my bikes that mainly slide against one another.

Yes, that's certainly one of it's purposes, and very good at it. It's ability to form a strong thin film on metallic surfaces means that you are lubricating with the grease two already lubricated surfaces (if you know what I mean), thus protecting both surfaces from wear, and protecting yourself against the failure of the grease, for whatever reason (unlikely on a bike). Thus it's entirely suited to ball bearing use. A half kilo of Castrol moly, for example, will give you moly suspended in a high quality industrial lith grease, and all for a fiver. That way you get the best of both worlds.

As to them silly little tubes of bike grease, I think it's probably perfectly good stuff, just over-priced because it says it's for bikes on the label Gotta love marketing people

Love the marketing people?
http://www.lubricants.org/Mobilith-SHC-1500-461.html
£897 a tub!

(It's big tub)

With some rule-of-thumb measuring and at a very rough guess that's a couple of quid for a bottom bracketful. (Obviously excluding any cost of repacking and distribution.)

Don't know if it would work with bottom brackets, but one trick often used (as long as the bearings aren't in a cage) is to run every other ball marginally under size. This reduces the amount of sliding.
I've seen it primarily used in CNC machines, but don't see why it wouldn't work here.

I once had a tub of Castrol CL grease which I think was for marine applications boy was that stuff sticky. Can't remember what happened to it.
I know the bike specific greases are expensive but I do like my little grease gun. I find that it is less messy, there is less chance of the grease being contaminated when applying and I seem to end up with bits of dirt etc in tubs. I have been using Exus blue grease for a good while and found it very good and a tube has lasted me for years.

Mick F wrote:Love the marketing people?
http://www.lubricants.org/Mobilith-SHC-1500-461.html
£897 a tub!

(It's big tub)

Ouch, that would be a lot to lay out!

It is a big tub though, 50kg to be precise, making it £17.94 per kg. Which actually compares rather favourably with Rock N Roll Super Web Grease recommended earlier, which at £17.99 for only 16oz costs more than twice as much (3½ times as much if you buy it in handy 4oz tubes).

Despite what some (including myself) have written about the marketing people, I don't think all of them are selling snake-oil. I've got some Rock N Roll "Cable Magic" and it is. Their "Web Grease" also sounds like it might well be the right stuff. So if you don't have room in your workshop for a 50kg drum, I think it's worth taking a punt on a small tub (or smaller tube) of that.

Mick F wrote:Love the marketing people?
http://www.lubricants.org/Mobilith-SHC-1500-461.html
£897 a tub!

(It's big tub)

Online ordering - quantites from 1 to 100 5 tonnes and £90k.

That £897 price tag is also ex VAT and ex Delivery. If you're happy to deal with mammoth amounts of grease, good on you, but I've got better things to do with my time

Frankly, I don't get people's beef with pricing on things like bike grease. It's like committee meetings, where the amount of time spent debating a topic is always inversely proportional to its actual financial impact; my total annual grease consumption is peanuts compared everything else cycle related! Regarding marketing and technical development, companies are in a slight catch 22. They develop of a product, they must market it to recoup their investment; yet marketing and technology is always viewed with suspicion. They could freely publish data sheets but that gives away valuable information to competitors, and how many cyclists are that bothered anyway? At the end of the day, companies trade on reputation and customer's experience, which may or may not be justified. I don't buy Finish Line products because I haven't found one that I like - I do buy Rock n Roll & Motorex stuff because everything I've had off them has been excellent, and there's some degree of trust there that when they say, "this is suitable for that" that is actually the case. Behind the marketing departments are usually a host of excellent engineers who are capable and do have integrity!

Winkeladvokat wrote:That £897 price tag is also ex VAT and ex Delivery. If you're happy to deal with mammoth amounts of grease, good on you, but I've got better things to do with my time

Ditto!

I spent a while on Google trying to find the stuff with a price stated. Most said 'phone for quote'.

Chatting about this with Mrs Mick F over breakfast this morning, we decided that if we could get 1000 people on this forum to send me a quid, I'd send them 50g each!

....... but I've got better things to do!

OK, I found
Mobilith SHC 1500
$9.95 For a 400g cartridge (plus shipping from USA??) http://store.lubricants.com/Mobilith-SHC-1500-p/lubricants_conn10_003.htm
or 6 cartridges for £93.12, shipping £8.50 , both plus VAT from Gannon via E mail
But also...
Theres XHP 222, the latest incarnation of HP 222, which was CJ's second favourite after the paper mill stuff last time,
Thats £26.50 for 12 cartridges here http://www.lubricantsupplies.co.uk/catalogsearch/result/?q=XHP+222,
probably plus VAT and shipping.

Now, seeing as I'm semi-retired and all, I might see my way to buying in XHP 222 by the box and selling at say five or six pounds for a 400g cartridge, including post.
Thats probably a sensible price, if the grease is good for bikes.

So, CJ, is XHP 222 good enough?
As a price comparison, Halfords list Castrol LM grease, 500g tub for £6.99

531colin wrote:....... I might see my way to buying in XHP 222 by the box and selling at say five or six pounds for a 400g cartridge, including post.
Thats probably a sensible price, if the grease is good for bikes.

Count me in, if it's the Right Stuff.

Sounds better than 1,000 units at £1,000!

Mick F wrote:Count me in, if it's the Right Stuff.

I thought I would wait and see if CJ responds, if he is positive I guess I should then do the sums properly and put an advert in the "for sale" board?

Yep.

As I said, count me in if it's the Right Stuff!