Purple Extreme Chain Lube

July 2005

All weather dry lubes find a space in my toolbox quite easily, I even keep a half bottle in my pack, just in case. (several people asked me if I had lube in the latter stages of the Builth Merida enduro, 'yes thanks' I replied, strange time for market research though!).

I like 'dry' lubes, the fact that they don't attract dirt and grit like 'wet' oils seems eminently practical in the varied Welsh soils. The fact that I don't have to change lubes depending on where I ride and what the atmospheric conditions are like, (i.e. is it raining or not), suit me down to the .... erm ... ground?

I had this synthetic lube from Fine-ADC, (clubs can get sample packs to try from their website www.fine-adc.com ) and was asked by them to try it and write a review, so I thought I'd give it a go.

Since I started using it, the weather has been hot and dry, until recently anyway. After heavy rain I decided I'd do a wet ride to test the claimed '400 road bike miles before re-application', (it does say mtb's may require more frequent attention). To test the lube I tried a new route on the Sarn Helen roman road out of Neath, I knew from riding other parts of Sarn Helen that there were likely to be deep puddles in the ruts, I was not wrong!

'Childlike glee' is how best to describe my feeling of riding through deep water, once your feet are wet you may as well enjoy it, so I managed to find more puddles. Some of them were easily over hub deep and 10m or more in length, so the chain got a good old soaking.

After 30km of riding the chain was still shifting well and sounded smooth. It looked filthy but then so did I, the chain didn't complain so I thought it best that I didn't either. On arriving home the bike went straight into the shed as part of my experiment. I had a shower with Dove soap as part of the control experiment, I didn't rust up overnight.

My habit is to re-apply chain lube after washing the bike following every ride, I didn't do this after the wet ride, to test how the lube stayed on the chain. When I checked the bike the following day, there were rust spots in several places on the chain and on the rear sprocket. However, a quick wipe over with a dirty rag and most of the rust came off, then a light application of the purple stuff seemed to erase all the rust and the chain was running as good as ever.

I have only two complaints:

1. The lube makes your chain look dirty, it dries to a waxy finish and coats the inner and outer chain plates with a dull, dark patina. Other clear lubes I use leave the chain looking like (almost) new, so I'm marking down the score because of this. However, with a name like 'Purple Extreme', you know when you buy it that the stuff is purple so I won't hold too much of a grudge against it.

2. It costs £9.99. This is a more serious issue. Most other similar dry lubes I use cost about half that.

In it's favour, the 120ml bottle has a medium length fine nozzle that helps you get lube where you want with less waste than other brands. You can see where you've applied lube when it's still wet and this can help reduce waste even more.

So, the conclusion is, the lube isn't as good as it claims, but then neither are any of the others I've tried. It seems no better or worse than ProLink ProGold or White Lightning Epic, my long term favourites. I doubt that they would have fared any better and I know most chain oils would have needed a quick top up half way around.

I give it 7/10

28-11-2006.

Update

Bruce at Purple Extreme took me to task over this review, he had this to say:

Just a couple of comments about your rant:

"The lube makes your chain look dirty, it dries to a waxy finish and coats the inner and outer chain plates with a dull, dark patina"

This is typical of a chain that was improperly cleaned. You did not get rid of all of the internal buildup and the solvent in the PE dissolved the residue making it look like the PE ran dark. We had this phenomenon occur frequently until riders got the idea that they had to really clean up first.

" My habit is to re-apply chain lube after washing the bike following every ride, I didn't do this after the wet ride, to test how the lube stayed on the chain. When I checked the bike the following day, there were rust spots in several places on the chain and on the rear sprocket."

Since the original use of this lube was for marine applications, it is a powerful rust protectant. I imagine that you did not completely remove all of the degreaser when you did your wash. Since PE is so biodegradable, any residual degreaser or soap will kill it in short order. If that did occur, you only received partial benefit from the lube and your comments would be consistent with that."

Well, it's not really a rant Bruce, I was trying to be impartial. Thanks for your input though.

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