The Oil Conundrum

I love my bicycle. It's a blue Trek 3900 16-inch-frame mountain bike with shocks and other assorted features. It's the nicest bike I've ever owned. (Cambodians love my bicycle too. It's got this irresistible beat-up old bell that no one, young or old, can refrain from ringing. Repeatedly. But I maintain that I love my bicycle more than anyone.)

So I try to take good care of it, which brings me to my point. I remember, back in the U.S., when I was just a little novice cyclist trying to learn how to take care of my bike, asking my friends what brand of bike-chain oil is the best to use. I wanted only the highest quality product to guide and caress my bike chain, to ensure its unhindered path through all the, um, stuff that it has to touch on its elliptical journey (derailleur? sprocket? gear? I have no clue). Oh, those days of abundance!

I currently have two choices of lubricants for my bike chain: motor oil or cooking oil. To date, I have opted for the motor oil, as advised by numerous Cambodians. It seems to serve just fine as a lubricant, as far as I can tell, with the only negative consequence being that I have a semi-permanent black oil patch on my lower right leg. (Perhaps I applied it a little too enthusiastically.)

But I've learned an important lesson from all the agonizing I did about how I was going to lubricate my chain, and from all my trepidation about following the advice to use the suspicious motor oil: don't be such a damn snob. I may never go back to fancy bike-chain oil again.