Muc-Off All Weather Lube

Muc-Off All Weather Lube is thick and clingy enough to resist vast amounts of flying water while keeping your chain running smoothly. Use too much and it turns into Muc-On though, rapidly making your chain look like charcoal from a wet fire and attracting all kinds of abrasive debris. It's also quite expensive, especially in this tiny bottle.

Want more choices? Check out our guide to the best bike chain lubes…

Muc-Off says this oil is 'readily biodegradable' and 'derived from renewable sources', and is basically suitable for any riding in any weather. Personally, I might prefer something lighter for any long dry, dusty spell, as it's pretty good at gathering grime.

Rain and spray will not wash this off any time soon, and if you put your bike away wet, the chain won't rust either – this clings to the links like a D-list celeb to fame. If you're still unsure it's there, it even contains a UV tracer dye so you can go all CSI Miami on it with an ultraviolet lamp.

It's not long before you don't need a blacklight, though – just look for the black crud. This lube seems to quite quickly trap the contaminants it's there to protect against, so while it technically lasts very well between applications, you'll probably want to remove it and apply a fresh coat sooner rather than later. I typically only got three to four rides in before the coal-coloured build-up between the rollers and side plates started to make my teeth itch.

You really don't want any meaningful amount on the sides of the chain either, or the whole thing will look like you used Marmite by accident.

Admittedly, my local lanes are currently absolutely filthy with mud, storm debris and flood/frost damage, but then this is recommended for mountain biking as well.

Value

This 50ml bottle is £6, which works out at 12p per millilitre, which is fairly expensive – roughly £540 a gallon – if not as expensive as really important liquids like insulin or printer ink.

At £13.99 for 120ml (up £1 since Stu tested it last year), Squirt Long Lasting Chain Lube comes in slightly under – 11.6p per millilitre – while Motorex Chain Lube Wet Conditions is 10p per millilitre (£9.99 for 100ml).

If you buy the 120ml bottle of this Muc-Off instead, it works out cheaper at 10p per millilitre (£12), but you can pay significantly less: Oxford Mint Wet Lube, tested by Ashley last year, is around half the price at £3.99 for 75ml, which works out at 5.3p per millilitre.

Overall

This sticks very well no matter how wet the roads (or trails) get, and while it's clean it runs very quietly and smoothly too. It quickly blackens with dirt, though, which means you'll probably want to clean and reapply it way before it starts to wash away – which only makes it feel more costly still.

Verdict

Slick, thick and very resistant to water, but needs regular redoing – it blackens with road filth rapidly