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Tags >> tandem
Mar 31, 2010

Grease is the word

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. 


Here's a flickr gallery that assembles tandem pictures from the NAHBS, including the Bilenky that won the Best Road Bike category, via Ritterview.