Chain lube debate: wet vs dry for city commuting?

I saw a YouTube video from a mechanic in Portland saying dry lube actually attracts more grit in wet climates than wet lube does, which totally flipped my assumption after 3 years of using dry stuff. He tested it on a 50-mile ride with a dirt section and measured chain wear, dry lube lost by like 0.5% stretch. Anyone here run wet lube in the rain and swear by it, or is the cleanup nightmare not worth it for daily riding?

1 comments

1 Comment

ellis.felix1mo ago

Wet lube in a rainy city is a mud magnet, plain and simple. The Portland dude's test sounds cool, but city grit is different from a dirt trail, and that wet film picks up way more of the fine sand and brake dust you actually hit daily. I ran wet lube for two winters and my chain, cassette, and derailleur pulleys turned into a black paste that wore through two chains and a cassette in one season. Dry lube flaked off, but it stayed cleaner and I just reapplied every couple days, which takes two minutes versus scrubbing that sludge off with solvents. His 0.5% stretch number is real, but you gotta factor in that cleaning time and part damage from the paste, not just the stretch.