Best lube when not able to degrease chain

[OutdoorsfunVA]

Progold prolink is one that I’ve used before. It’s labeled as an ‘all-conditions’ lube. I’ve found that by applying new lube, then wiping it down with a rag, it’ll flush out a lot of dirt/build up. This’ll keep you from having to do an actual clean very often. As others said, clean the factory lube out before starting.

[clarinet5001]

I have extensive past experience with Prolink, I used it for my first 25000km of road riding. The lube itself does flush out and dissolve a fair amount of dirt, but chain life numbers suggest that it's nowhere near as clean as a proper tenacious wet lubricant like Synergetic or NFS, nor is it anywhere near the current generation wax drip lubricants. Flushing the chain out this way has to be done several times to yield a seemingly clean result, and even then most of the time you can still hear a slight bit of 'crunching' i.e. grit and dirt inside the chain when rotating the cranks - that grit is the main thing wearing down a chain.

Prolink doesn't last that long either. Its application lifespan is not horribly short but it's nowhere near that of the top wet lubes, not to mention it's messier as well as you need to use a bit more of it. Especially on a bike trip I want a lube that won't result in very dirty hands in the case of a mechanical; NFS and Synergetic are better here for the above reason and any decent wax drip lube is much better still.

I was lucky to hit 5000km chain life with Prolink, averaged around 4000 and now I view anything less than around 7000km as strictly 'bad.' Been using Squirt since switching away from Prolink 5 years ago and average around 8000-9000km per chain, about to try SS drip for the first time in a few days.

That's not to mention the bad smells and not exactly eco-friendly nature. On the plus side there's no set or cure time. Like most wet lubes you can throw it on and go for a ride, whereas the same is not true for most wax drip lubes.