thewashingmachinepost




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wax on, wax off

'because every fluid used on your bike ends up in the environment'

green oil chain wax

no doubt there is some secret reason as to why the uk changes from british summertime to british wintertime (gmt) at some bizarre time of a sunday morning. this is usually at 1am; folks who are still up and about at that time are quite likely not sufficiently in command of their own senses to make the decision to put their watches or clocks back by one hour. no doubt, somewhere buried in the filing cabinet in brussels, is an edict from the european union mandating that such alterations of an horological manner ought to take place at the most inconvenient hour deemed appropriate.

obviously, we got 1am.

green oil chain wax

though the official adjunct to contemporary time is greenwich mean time, if its precedent is that of british summer time, i think it only appropriate that we denote this current period as british wintertime. if ever there was an accurate naming of a forthcoming season, bwt was most definitely it. there has been scarcely a sunday morning in recent memory when the velo club has not occupied its pre-coffee time with an appropriate perambulation of the estates, several of which would have been more suitably employed in front of the telly with slippers on both feet.

however it would, i believe, be tantamount to capitulation to open the bedroom curtains on the first day of wintertime, accept the quantitative amounts of precipitation and gale force winds and go back to bed. therein do not lie the roots of stoicism. ok, i will admit that i did consider the lazy option for several minutes, minutes that may or may not have been cogitated under the 15tog king-size duvet. however, if questioned in company, i will deny the episode ever took place.

in the very best of tv dramas, there is often a brief recourse to what the movie industry refers to as non-linearity, a scene of interest which is delightfully out of chronological order. it's a lot harder to do in the written word, particularly with regard to the confused narratives that occupy these pixels. but, in for a penny, in for a pound; non-linearity it is.

green oil chain wax

on the saturday afternoon, when british summertime was still tentatively in force, i opted to coat the eleven speed campagnolo chain on the shand skinnymalinky currently in the bikeshed for review purposes, with the newly received (on saturday afternoon, in fact) green oil white super dry chain wax. i lead a sheltered life in the henrides, so while chain wax is not entirely unknown to me, i will cheerfully admit to having never attempted to benefit from its properties on any previous occasion, and certainly not the product from green oil.

the latter has been lubricating the chains and moving components of bicycles for a number of years. i have come across their products at one or two editions of the annual cycle show, but for reasons that escape and embarrass me, i have not investigated further. contrition is mine.

green oil chain wax

an erstwhile employer of my services was often heard to say "do not assume; it makes an ass out of you and me". therefore, it would be naive to second guess whether the chain of a review bike had been coated in anyhting other than the thin film of grease used to protect the chain in its packaging. as the skinnymalinky had, up to this point, been ridden in pleasantly dry conditions, was really no good reason to have left this essential piece of maintenance entirely to chance. therefore, the chain got lubed with wax.

if i might now return to the appropriate present, the sunday morning in question encapsulated the first day of winter more than adequately. the only thing truly missing was a fluttering of snow. though considerably depleted due to the weather, the sunday ride left only lord carlos and i to uphold the velo club reputation of partial insanity, ploughing through atrocious rain and gale-force winds for no other reason other than a warm cappuccino at the end. it is the hebridean way.

green oil chain wax

rain of that stature, applied in close proximity to the atlantic ocean, forced into every nook and cranny by a driving wind would normally have recoloured a shiny silver chain a rather attractive shade of techno orange. not the end of the world, i'm sure you'll agree, but somewhat undesirable nonetheless. unless, of course, you've had the perspicacity to previously apply some green oil super dry chain wax. which, of course, i had.

to verify not only the mechanical skill deftly dropped link by link onto vicenza's finest, but the efficacy of same, i've just been out to thewashingmachinepost bikeshed to check the condition of said chain. considering the travails through which the chain has been put, the word immaculate would be perhaps overstating the case, but you would surely agree that its dull sheen (predominantly due to the white wax) is of greater comfort than techno orange. the fact that it had again started raining when i popped out to the shed would foretell of many more periods of british wintertime to come, at which time, not only will i fear not for my chain, but for the health of the environment through which i am attempting to speed.

green oil chain wax

the folks at green oil portend that dry lubes tend to remain upon the chain links for less time than wet lubes, however, given the weather that i expect to meet on a daily basis, this is truly of no nevermind, since the chain will be lubricated regularly enough that periods of lubricationlessness need never rear their ugly ferrous oxide. the white wax lube is apparently popular with commuters due to a propensity not to leave stains upon errant trouser legs. it's also biodegradable due to the incorporation of beeswax and bioethanol made from sugar in the formula.

but it's not just the lubricant that's recyclable; so is the container in which it arrives, for which green oil offer ten pence if returned, or which certain retailers will refill with a ten or twenty pence discount. in my mind, that's not half bad for a chain lubricant that has assistend my passage through the first day of british wintertime.

100ml of green oil white super dry chain wax costs £6.99 and is available from a green oil dealer near you.

green oil



tuesday 30th october 2012

twmp

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twmp

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