For many years, cyclists with S&S-coupled bikes had only one approved choice for lubricating the torque couplers: DuPont Teflon Bicycle Grease (DTBG). We always took the time to explain to customers that it wasn't just marketing—that Steve Smilanick of S & S had done some pretty exhaustive testing to determine which grease formulations were best at avoiding the failure modes that are particular to stainless steel fasteners, and had come to the conclusion that DTBG was the only commercially-available product that really fit the bill. 

In Steve's testing, the DTBG (and a couple of similar, astronomically expensive industrial lubes) proved to be best at resisting damage from galling, and eventual seizure. When I say better, I mean exponentially better. The DTBG fasteners made it through 1000 cycles of Steve's test, at which point he stopped testing. Most of the other products he tested only managed a handful of cycles before seizing. Many of them, including some that had Teflon added, were no better than having no lubrication at all . . . at least for this application.  Read about it here . . . it's really interesting. 

So here's the rub: DuPont got out of the bike business, and stopped selling these lube products for commercial applications. A handful of suppliers bought up the remaining product, and have been selling it for years. 

I always wondered why the packaging on the DTBG looked like it did: something about the pastel colors and cursive script conjured the Greg LeMond of the 80s and 90s . . . 

. . . not to mention that it promoted a race (the Tour DuPont) that was last run in 1996.

So what happens when all of those old pastel cards are sold out, you ask? 

Well, Finish Line has now stepped up to the plate with a new product that is 100% DuPont Teflon. Finish Line Extreme Fluoro Grease is approved by S&S and is the only such product out there in bike land, as far as I know. It's expensive ($14.95 for a 20g syringe) but you don't need to use very much for the BTCs, and it lasts a long time. If you've got an S&S-coupled bike, buy an extra syringe for travel, or just for a rainy day.

Here at the shop we're often encouraging people to look beyond marketing, when often the difference between two otherwise similar products is the marketing dollars poured into one of them [ed note: this is the end of the sentence I accidentally truncated this morning, oops and did I mention not enough coffee?] and as such it would be a little bit embarrassing to say "buy this expensive grease" without feeling like I've adequately explained why it's a good idea. Hopefully, that's been done.

So if you have S&S, buy this expensive grease for your coupler threads. You're not buying pixie dust—it's a small investment for something that could prevent a very expensive repair.