Oddly enough, one of the most common products we get sent here at CanyonChasers have something to do with chains and chain maintenance. We never fully realized how much people must hate taking care of their chains. Now, granted, most of these products are so bad and so cumbersome that they rarely make it onto the site, but the most recent “revelation in chain maintenance” actually works.
Enter the simple little product with a silly name; the Grease Ninja. A simple chunk of thermoplastic, shaped to fit over the top of the chain, a couple of tiny holes and a piece of copper. It doesn’t look like much. But we decided to give the little “Ninja” a try.
How it works is this; Take you favorite chain lube and wrap the copper wire around the can. Insert the tip of the tiny plastic nozzle into a pre-drilled hole in the top of the thermoplastic body. Place the plastic body over the top of the chain, supporting it in place with one hand holding the copper wire steady onto the can of chain lube, then go about lubing your chain. Looks simple enough. Right?
Function
We floundered. Keeping the Grease Ninja aligned and properly on the chain proved to be cumbersome and our experience with all the other crazy products we’ve been asked to try had us ready to toss it into the round-file. But we couldn’t give up that easy. So we kept at it; adjusting the copper wire around the can, re-bending it, even trying a couple of different plastic nozzles until we found the right combination.
Once we felt confident we’d gotten it figured out, we cleaned off all the spattered and clumped chain lube from the chain (and all surrounding surfaces) to give it one last try. Low and behold, it worked – and it worked brilliantly! The Grease Ninja put a perfect little bead of chain lube directly over the O-rings, between each plate of the chain! We’d be lying if we didn’t say we stood there with our mouths hanging open. Never, in all our years of lubing chains had we ever seen such a perfectly lubed chain.
In our excitement, we rushed around and lubed the chains on every motorcycle in the garage until we had emptied our can of lube.
Summary
To be fair, the Grease Ninja does take some time to figure out, but the end result is worth it. Not only does the Grease Ninja put the lube exactly where it will do the most good, but it prevents lube from getting all the places you don’t want it. Like your swingarm, your exhaust pipes, your wheel, your tire or all over the ground; which means you use less chain lube. We’d also be willing to say that using this little device, which puts lube exactly where it should be, will make a notable difference in how long your chain will last.
It’s not often we stumble across a product like this; as affordable as it is effective. For a mere $15, you’d be foolish not to have one of these in your garage.
The Grease Ninja comes in a myriad of sizes ranging from 530 to 425, as well as a couple of sizes for bicycle chains. For more information or to get a Ninja for your garage, visit www.greaseninja.com.
