Grease is one of those shop supplies that's easy to overlook until you're chasing a creak or watching a seized seatpost fight back. Park Tool's PPL-1 PolyLube 1000 is the tube that lives in most shop benches and home toolboxes because it handles the full range of bicycle grease applications without requiring you to stock multiple specialty products. Headset bearings, bottom bracket threads, seatpost interfaces, pedal threads, quick-release skewer contact points—anywhere metal meets metal or metal meets carbon and needs protection from corrosion and seizing, this is the grease that goes there.

The formulation uses a polyurea thickener rather than the lithium-based thickeners found in automotive greases. Polyurea handles the temperature swings and moisture exposure that bicycles encounter better than lithium complexes, maintaining its consistency whether the bike lives in a climate-controlled garage or gets ridden through winter slush. The grease stays where you put it instead of migrating away from bearing surfaces or washing out in wet conditions.

PPL-1 works on both metal and carbon fiber surfaces, which matters as more frames and components use carbon construction. It won't attack or degrade carbon the way some petroleum-based greases can, so you can use the same tube for your carbon seatpost interface that you use for your steel bottom bracket threads. The medium-weight consistency spreads easily but doesn't run or drip, making application cleaner than heavier greases that fight the brush or lighter ones that end up everywhere except where you aimed.... Read More