chico1st

Where I live it rains fairly often but I like the idea of using wax on my bike. If you ride while it is raining will the wax just wear away super quickly? What about if its post rain?

How long will wax last if i only ride it when its dry? what about wet and dry conditions?

HauntedMyst

It won't wear away super quickly if you use a harder wax like Carnuba. In rainy conditions, I'd wax it once a month with a hard cardnuba wax and then weekly with a quick spray wax. Here in Chicago, I wax it once a summer with hard wax and once a month with Turtle Wax Ice. I don't tend to ride in the rain.

BarracksSi

You've never waxed your car, have you?

BlazingPedals

If you're talking about wax-based chain lubes, then the answer is they don't stay on very well and they don't protect well against rust. It's best to dry the chain then reapply after getting rained on. If you ride a lot in wet, then an oil-based lube will work better. I love White Lightning, but I'm almost exclusively a fair-weather cyclist.

Velo Dog

I don't see what one of these things has to do with the other...it rains where you live, BUT you like to use wax? Isn't repelling water one of the main reasons people DO use wax? Thus it would be reasonable to assume that wax would be formulated to do the job it's sold for...
I don't wax my bike (come on, it's a bike), but I've done several stories and tests for newspapers and magazines on car care, including care of the paint. Modern finishes will stay glossy for several years with or without wax, but wax does protect them to a degree. We haven't tested this specifically, but I doubt that unpolluted rain has much effect on how long the wax lasts. It's just water.
How long the wax lasts on a bike ridden in the rain is so far down my list of concerns that i've never even considered it, but a good wax job on a car will give protection for a few to several months, depending on conditions. My guess would be that sun degrades it faster than rain, so if that's right, you'd want to avoid riding on nice days.
FWIW, the paint that's already on the bike gives excellent protection from water, and unless your frame is steel, water's not going to hurt it anyway--aluminum and carbon are unaffected by it.

apclassic9

my boys used to clean thier MTBs with that teflon-based bathtub cleaner - to repel mud better.

X-LinkedRider

That's the whole point of wax.

HappyStuffing

Am i the only one here thinking about how we might rub off all the wax from the middle of the frame the first time we ride?

co-worker: What were you doing with your bike? Whats that all over your thighs and crotch?

Me: It's just wax, i swear! Thats not weird is it? IS IT?!?

freako

Wax? on what? Like one poster said wax on chains is crap.

On the frame I would use a superior car wax like Mequire's NXT Generation. Don't use Carnuba wax unless you have a natural paint used on your frame, and all cars and bicycle paint jobs today are synthetic paint. Also with Carnuba you would have to rewax your frame every week since it's not a long lasting protectant like the modern synthetic "waxes". But even painted al and cf frames look better with a synthetic wax on it because it makes the paint shine or have a wet look to it; even though protection of the base metal is not the issue, wax will protect the paint from fade.