CHAIN LUBE!
Surely, you have experienced the thrill of obtaining a new bottle of chain lube. You haven’t? Well cycling’s most humble essential has a new trick up its sleeve with Muc-Off’s C3 Dry Ceramic Lube, so shut up about that power meter and hold on to your socks!
Already a high-performing dry lubricant that will clad a chain’s inner workings in a friction-fighting embrace, C3 also has the unusual ability to glow neon green under an included ultraviolet light. This quirky trait allows the user to verify a chain has drawn up just the right amount of lube, eliminating the guesswork that comes with most alternatives.
Granted, applying chain lubricant is hardly rocket science. Yet it is a novel joy to see precisely how well C3 works its way into the hundreds of articulations that comprise a bicycle chain. Making the task easier is a well-designed, narrow bottle with a built-in applicator around two inches in length.
Now, there is no way in the world I could possibly tell you whether C3 actually reduced the friction in my drivetrain to any measurable result. Are you crazy? All I can add here is that UK-based Muc-Off does sponsor Team Sky at the time of this writing, an organization that strikes me as a little…meticulous…when it comes to vetting performance.
What I can tell you, however, is that C3 has an uncanny ability to shed crud. After consecutive days of wet-road riding left my bike in shambles, I was surprised to look down and see my chain utterly gleaming against the mess of my cassette.
C3 is more viscous than the dry lube I am used to, and the feel of a lubricated chain reminded me somewhat of the way a chain feels when it is fresh from the box (awesome). The lube holds up over multiple days of abuse, is easy to apply and freakin’ glows. It glows, man!
