Squirt lube

Good lube, this, and not to be confused with delicate wax lubes that demand you soak your chain in lavender oil for three weeks and then pick out the dirt with a toothpick before you apply it. You can just slap this stuff on, and after a few applications when excess wax starts to build up on the chain, you can easily brush it off, keeping your chain nice and clean. It stays put, too.

The Squirt people describe their wax lube as "an emulsion that is blended under special controlled conditions from a number of waxes" - it's basically a suspension of the wax in water, which differs from most wax lubes that dissolve the wax in an VOC-based carrier. That means it's more environmentally friendly, and it doesn't seem to affect the penetration.

The first test was to add some to a dryish chain and see how it fared under normal conditions. The milky-white liquid is easy to see on the chain, and when the water evaporates you get that slightly greasy wax-lube feel. The Squirt lube easily survived 30-odd miles of normal commuting in all weathers, at which point it faced about the sternest test possible: 40 miles in the salt, snow and rain finishing up on the muddy, puddle-strewn canal towpath. I wouldn't expect any lube to survive that and the chain showed some evidence of rust the next day after a hose down, but it wasn't noisy - there was still some lube in there, so it's pretty tenacious stuff. Squirt market the wax lube at MTBers as well as roadies, and it's certainly a good choice for both. In terms of longevity it's not quite up with the best wet lubes, but it's much better than most of the other dry and wax lubes I've tested.

I was sceptical about Squirt's claim that "excess wax gets expelled by the chain and falls off during riding - cleaning with a dry brush is adequate", but it turns out there's some truth in that. The excess wax is pretty easy to get rid of: it doesn't readily fall off of its own accord but a quick brush buffs up your chain nicely, and dirt doesn't stick to it like it would with a wet lube.

Verdict

Easy to apply, tenacious and clean running wax lube