Smoove lube was introduced to me at the end of 2017 as an alternative chain lubrication. At first, I was reluctant to give up Muc Off; after all, it works great and I’d got into quite a good habit of cleaning and re-applying after each ride. Eventually, I gave Smoove a try when I won a bottle in a giveaway from Cyclorise. If it’s free, it’s got to be worth a try, right?
The main benefit of Smoove Lube is that the time between applications can be massive and there’s no longer a need to clean and degrease the chain after every single ride. Instead, I can leave the same application on the chain for several rides and know that the chain should run smooth and quiet.
So does it run smooth and quiet? I’ve tested Smoove through this winter in some of the most boggy riding I’ve done to date and it performed amazingly well. In fact, it performed better than Muc Off’s Wet Lube which I’d previously been using. The chain picked up little dirt, felt clean and ran quietly. Smoove has become my lube of choice throughout the winter months and must’ve saved me hours of chain cleaning and degreasing between rides.
In the dry conditions, I’ve found it to work well, but not as well at Muc Off’s Dry Lube. Smoove doesn’t pick up heaps of dirt during a ride by any stretch of the imagination, but it does pick up slightly more than Muc Off, especially on the jockey wheels. Has this meant that I’ve swapped back to my old Dry Lube? Well, no. Smoove’s convenience outweighs having a slightly cleaner chain for me and I don’t mind cleaning and degreasing the drivechain every third or fourth ride when using Smoove, rather than every ride when using Muc Off. It also means that when I’m travelling around I only have to take one bottle of lube rather than two different choices. Small things like that might not matter to some, but the simplicity of knowing I’ve got a product that works well in whatever situation is a big deal to me.
The application of Smoove demands a clean chain and leaving it overnight. That’s not a problem for me since I try to make sure I’ve cleaned and sorted my bike ready for the next ride once I’m back from the last one. And because Smoove lasts so long it actually works out cheaper to pay slightly more for a bottle than other lubes which run out quicker. Long term saving = happy Yorkshireman.
I have tried this lube on my mountain bike and road bike and it is complete garbage ads friction and does not last very long and is very very hard to clean off everything it gets stuck too
Different findings then. I’m still a fan. Since writing this, I’ve also used Squirt and that seems cleaner but doesn’t last quite as long so I’ve swapped to that and just degrease and reapply more regularly. In comparison to things like Muc Off, Squirt and Smoove come out heads above in my experience.