Review: Loobman Chain Oiler

I really wanted to like the Loobman. It’s a low-tech, low-cost, seemingly brilliant solution that uses easy-to-replace consumables. It looked like a great compromise between an expensive chain oiler that would have to tap into the bike’s systems (Scottoiler and the ilk) and manually lubing my chain.

Kay was in agreement, so we both bought Loobmans in the summer of 2010 – before setting off to Ushuaia.

So the parts were a little cheap – so what? That’s what you knew you were getting.

So the install wasn’t exactly straightforward – we probably spent more time than necessary fiddling with bending bits into place, etc. (And my install definitely went better than Kay’s – I rock

I attached the Loobman’s oiler head onto the swingarm with the included zip ties, and got it positioned at about 3 o clock on the sprocket.

It even worked, for a while.

Reach down and give the bottle a squeeze before taking off, and the chain gets a nice lube. Kay could even do it while riding, which was great, because we didn’t always think about it as often as we should have. (I couldn’t quite reach my bottle safely – it took a lot of feeling around for it and I only managed to do it once or twice while riding.)

But I noticed, when I bothered to look at it, that after a few days or weeks of riding, the zip ties that are used to disburse chain lube from the oiler head would be worn down. A lot. Or one side would be gone entirely. So I’d only be getting lube from one side, or lube wouldn’t be getting to my sprocket/chain at all – it would only be a coincidence if lube dripped onto my chain while riding.

I kept replacing the zip ties, and they kept getting ripped out/worn down.

Kay, in the meantime, had his own mishaps. His Loobman install imploded a couple of times. The oiler head wasn’t positioned optimally and it bent – Kay had to re-bend it to get it back into the appropriate oil delivery position. A couple of times, the oil delivery tube came out of the oil head altogether and would be dangling loose while he rode. I’d have to tell him over the headsets to stop, and he would literally tie the tube to the swingarm until we got someplace where he could adjust it.

One of those times, the tube melted, and he had to replace the tube entirely.

Somewhere along the trip from Boston to Ushuaia, I decided I’d had enough of dealing with the Loobman. I think it was actually one of Kay’s varying Loobman installs that got borked – something happened during one of our off road sections (maybe a rock flying up and hitting the flimsy strip of metal holding the oiler head into place?) We were fixing it wherever we had stopped for the night, and I checked mine and saw that both zip ties in the oiler head were gone again – and that was enough.

I got sick of constantly having to check the zip ties, make sure the oiler head hadn’t moved, dealing with the tubes that kept coming lose and dangling – I decided enough was enough. I disconnected my Loobman right then and there, and went hunting for a good old fashion spray lube for my chain.

In my opinion, It’s a lot easier (and less aggravating) to take a few minutes to lube the chain manually at the beginning or end of the day, or every few days, instead of having to take those few minutes to check and repair the device that’s supposed to be doing it for me.

Loobman: I really wanted to love you for your mechanically simple, low-cost promises.

But the aggravation just wasn’t worth it.