What's that orange-ish raid?

 

 

Sometimes, after applying Revolube, a chain may get covered with an orange - red colour raid, depending on working conditions. 

The visible spots are iron-chlorides, not rust (that is iron-oxides).
This raid can sometimes occur for steel alloy used to produce the chain, that contains a lot of iron but a small amount of manganese and chromium. Salt coming from road salting acts as a catalysator for the chemical reaction, which performs faster and produces more iron-chloride molecules.

Iron chlorides are not rust, although they might look similar as they have red - orange color, and do not cause chain’s jamming and ageing.
The iron-chloride raid will disappear during normal operation.


You can find more information on iron chlorides under:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_chloride