Step away from the videos before someone gets hurt! 99.9999% of the videos on cleaning your bike are useless. They are someone's attempt at justifying OCD behavior when it comes to bike cleaning. Your bike doesn't need to be squeaky clean to operate nor does will making it squeaky clean make it run any better or make parts last any longer. A chain is going to last about 3000 miles before it wears out. A cassette is going to last about 9000 miles if you change the chain at about 1.0% wear. A cassette will last about 4000 miles if you let the chain wear longer. No amount of obsessive cleaning is going to change those number much.

The way to avoid all this foolishness is to avoid using water on your chain. Cleaning chains seems to be something along the line of a belt, suspenders, duct tape and surgical staples for holding your pants up I'm rather surprised that the videos don't chase the soapy water with gallons of just water to remove the soap.

There is no need for any of this. Use a degreaser that actually dissolves the grease and evaporates. That is all that's needed. You don't need elaborate cleaning schemes nor multiple steps. Mineral spirits does the job, is cheap, and a cup of the stuff cleans from 5 to 15 chains depending on where you decide that you have more old lubricant than mineral oil. Put a cup in an old Gatorade bottle with a wide mouth, drop the chain in and shake it for 30 seconds. Fish out the chain and let the mineral spirits evaporate. You are done.

Wiping a chain, whether to remove water or oil, does nothing more than remove anything on the outside of the chain. If you use water on your chain and then pour oil on it, you might as well get out the lettuce because you are making salad dressing. There are myths running around out there that metals have an affinity for oils but they don't. They actually have an affinity for the water because of the nature of both materials. Pouring oil on the water will only result in the water sticking to the metal surface and the churn of pedaling will supply the water with oxygen which will result in the iron of the chain oxidizing. In other words, you have the perfect condition for rust.

The reason for removing all the water from a chain prior to waxing is the same reason you don't pour water into a deep fryer. The water will sink to the bottom of the wax and eventually heat enough to flash to steam which then explodes through the wax. You don't want hot wax flying around because it sticks and burns flesh rather badly.

My chain cleaning regime is to take a new chain, shake it in the Gatorade bottle with mineral spirits, remove it, let it dry and put it on the bike. I then use White Lightning to lubricate it and do so every 500 to 600 miles. I don't clean or remove the chain again until I need to replace it...after about 3000 miles. No chainring tattoos, no greasy hands when handling the chain and no grit or grime from the lubricant. But most importantly, I don't spend all my time obsessing about how dirty my chain is.