Yeah the motor oil is going to attract dirt and sand. Those are the enemies of chains as the grit works it's way into the links and cause wear and tear, not to mention a black ugly mess after awhile. I would recommend cleaning your chain with a H2O mixture of simple green or dawn dish soap real good to remove all the oil. If you have a tool to remove the chain (or have a link that allows hand removal) it's best to do this off the bike, but can be done on the bike too. If you have a chance, clean the cogs and sprockets up real good as well. I’ve been using Pedro’s Ice Wax for many years and love the product. Here is a link to the product website

[url] http://pedros.com/products/clean-and-lube/lubricants-and-grease/ice-wax-2-0/[/url]

I think any PTFE type lube such as the pedro’s would work fine. PTFE is good for just about any situation, hot, cold, wet dry, sandy, muddy, road or MTB (in my case both) Most bike shops should have some. I usually get a big bottle off of ebay and save some bucks.

Been using Tri-Flow since late 80's; mostly on roads but also used it on my mountain bike. Would not recommend use on mountain bike unless you clean regularly (e.g. running through the chain with a rag and liberal application of flow). If you are in the habit of cleaning your chain with soap and water or periodic deep cleaning with solvents (in the bike shops I used to work in, we use diluted Simple Green), I would recommend using a wax based lubricant first before applying lighter oils such as Tri-Flow. The lube used at the shop for that purpose was generic motorcycle-type chain lubes. If possible, try to keep the factory lube as long as possible (light wipe or air) as it is superior to anything that can be purchased over the counter. This include lubing the chain as it dilutes the factory lube. To get anything close to factory lube, you would need to heat a wax based lube so that it permeates all of the internal interstices in the chain. I would not recommend chain cleaning with water/soap or solvents until you have several hundred miles from the factory or it's needed.

Chain L for long chain life and long miles between lubbing IME.

Simple green is a bad thing to use to clean chains, as a water soluble degreaser how are you going to rinse it out? It stays behind and then breaks down the new lube.

I think it all depends on the type of riding you do. Motor oil is ok if you ride primarily on dry clean roads and you clean your mech often. It's not good for mountain biking or cycloscross as it attracts dirt and grit to easily and gums up the chain internals.

Using diluted Simple Green is fine as a degreaser providing you thoroughly rinse and dry the components. For me this means always removing the cassette and chain at minimum.

I agree on using the wax/ptfe based dry lubes. I'd love to know what Sram is using on their pre-lubed chains, it works really well for me.

Chain L for long chain life and long miles between lubbing IME.

Simple green is a bad thing to use to clean chains, as a water soluble degreaser how are you going to rinse it out? It stays behind and then breaks down the new lube.

Not saying it's the best but that was what we used in two out of three bike shop. The other used solvent. The pro shops I used to work in also used compressed air to blow most out and let sit in a bowl filled with lubricant under a heat lamp for at least an hour, solvent and simple green. The other was a campus ran enterprise so the attention we gave was the best most of the bikes will see in it's live time. That's one of the reason we used motorcycle-type chain lubes since they tend to stay around longer even if it's tougher to get into the inaccessible areas where it really counts.

On mine, I only Tri-Flow for cleaning. If I had the space and setup, I wouldn't mind using simple green.

See http://sheldonbrown.com/chains.html, he has a good post on chain maintenance (and why motor oil is not a good idea).

Been using Tri Flow since the 80's. Works for me.