Originally Posted by
terrymorse
There's no doubt that wax-based chain lubes are great at making your chain look clean.
But if minimizing friction and preventing wear are the goal, there is probably no worse lubricant than the class of drip-on, wax-based lubes.
I dont think that is accurate. Not even according to zerofriction, that you are referencing. On the contrary most of the best performing lubes on test was in fact wax based. It is also true that some of the tested wax lubes have performed worse than expected. Most notably forum-darling Squirt, and the tester surmised that the poor performance was related to poor penetration. However, was that the reason? He never proved the point by taking a Squirt lubed chain apart. The poor penetration conclusion seem derived from endless theorizing and conjecture, rather that just taking a look.
From my, limited, experience with Squirt it seem perfectly capable of draining in to the chain. However tenacity seem lacking. In less than 100km the chain becomes notably chatty (no squeaking tho) and there are dry / shiny spots on chainring teeth indicating all the lube is pushed away. I'm not too impressed, but will use up my two bottles, as I do like the reduced mess. The other wax lubes that tested better seem way to overprized to pay for them selves. Even Squirt seem a bit on the high side, considering two little bottles are as much as I usually pay for a new chain, and the low mileage
pr lube.