BBB BioWax Pro Chain Wax Lubricant 100ml

The BBB BioWax Pro Chain Wax Lubricant is the company’s premium high-performance lube. I found it a good quality wax-based lube, but – being blended with what BBB calls ‘natural oils’ – it left more residue than I’d like. And at £21.99 for a 100ml bottle, this is one of the more expensive options out there.

> Buy now: BBB BioWax Pro Chain Wax Lubricant for £21.99 from Westbrook Cycles

The Dutch brand BBB is best known for its great value tools, parts, accessories and maintenance products. The BioWax Pro chain lube is a new addition to its range of lubricants and cleaning supplies, which has undergone a facelift in the last few months.

I recently tested its BioDriveTrain Cleaner, and I was really impressed – so I had high hopes for the BioWax Pro chain lube. And these were at least partly realised.

But there’s no getting away from the £21.99 price for 100ml – that’s expensive by any standards. Though BBB also offers the non-‘Pro’ BioWax chain lube for £9.99, which is in line with that of other wax chain lubes.

BBB describes the BioWax Pro lube as ‘High-performance’ with ‘higher adhesive strength’, which ‘reduces friction even under high watt performances’. It consists of wax and natural oils that are designed to deliver ‘long-lasting all-weather performance’. Which would make it pretty much the ultimate chain lube…

> How to clean your bike chain

The slim bottle has a nice applicator that lets a steady flow of lube out onto the chain without it pouring out uncontrollably. The lube itself is a glossy grey colour, so it can be a little tricky to tell which links are suitably coated in lube as it can blend somewhat into the metal.

Being a wax-based lube, I expected the lube to run pretty clean. My go-to lube for the last few seasons has been Squirt Lube, which is a wax and water emulsion, and I find the residue pretty minimal, and it can be washed off with water.

However, running my finger along the chain coated in BBB’s BioWax Pro chain lube after a few rides, I found the residue to be much closer to that of a traditional oil-based lube – black and greasy. It was hard to get off, and needed a good soak in degreaser and a scrub with a stiff brush to get off my chain and cassette after a few rides.

All-weather?

Despite this residue, I found that the lubrication wore off after around 200km of riding in the dry, at which point I ended up with a squeaky chain. This feels to me like quite a short lifespan for an ‘all-weather’ lube.

The positives are that after applying the lube my drivetrain was noise-free and did indeed feel very smooth – though in part this might be because I was paying particularly close attention when applying it. And while I have no accurate way of testing BBB’s watt-saving claims, it does lead me to think there may be some truth to them.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to test the lube in wet conditions, as my month of testing coincided with near-drought conditions. But given how quickly it’s wearing off in the dry, I’m not convinced it would perform that well in genuinely wet conditions.

Overall, though, the lube was easy to apply, lasted a fair amount of time for a high-performance lube and was no harder to clean than an oil-based lube. But as BBB seems to be pushing this as an ‘all-weather’ lube, I would have expected a bit more durability.

To me the ‘wax’ element in the name is almost a red herring, as its performance and cleaning were, for me, closer to that of a traditional oil lubricant. And I can’t really see the benefits of the addition of wax except for the marketing side of things.

Eco-friendly?

As for its eco credentials, I was initially confused about this, but then I realised that the ‘100% biodegradable? No’ on BBB’s website actually refers solely to the bottle – not the lube. Though BBB did tell us that the bottle is made from recycled PET (polyethylene terephthalate) material.

The lube itself is 100% biodegradable and 100% plant based. BBB tells us: ‘The product is a mix between wax and lube. The formula is derived from plant-based and natural resources, so both are of plant-based/natural origin and free from PFTE and petrochemicals. The product is biodegradable in 28 days.’

So there you go. BBB just needs to make its website a bit clearer.

Value

There’s no getting away from the fact that the BioWax Pro Lube’s £21.99 price for a 100ml bottle is expensive.

That makes it £2 dearer than CeramicSpeed’s UFO Drip All Conditions and a tenner more expensive than my go-to option, the Squirt Long Lasting Chain Lube and Juice Lubes Chain Juice Wax. 

It’s more than double the cost of both the Morgan Blue Dry Wax and NZero’s Bike Dry Wax Lube.

Conclusion

Overall, the BBB BioWax Pro Chain Wax Lubricant is a decent option if you’re looking for an easy-to-apply lube with high-performance claims. But while I’m a big fan of its impressive eco credentials – it’s plant-based and 100% biodegradable – that price is off-putting.

> Buy now: BBB BioWax Pro Chain Wax Lubricant for £21.99 from Westbrook Cycles

Verdict

Wax-based lube with good eco credentials – but it is expensive and seems to perform more like an oil-based lube

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