Originally Posted by elcruxio

It's not so much the squirting of oil than wiping away the excess, which you kinda have to do if you don't want your drivetrain turning into a sludgy mess. In our winter our conditions a dry lube leads to daily relubes and a rusty chain that lasts a year of riding tops. With a wet lube you get a dark brown rusty sludge that makes the chain + drivetrain sticky, affecting shifting, causing drag and the chain again lasts at most a year.



I suppose you can waste a lot of time waxing chains. With a single chain drip wax usually works best.

I rotate multiple chains. For me the process is more like I turn on the crock pot, go do something useful for an hour or two. No need to be on call next to the pot when the wax is melting. After the wax has melted I dip all the used chains in and hang to cool. Takes from a few minutes to fifteen depending how many chains I have for waxing. I do that usually once every one or two months.

When it comes to swapping a used chain for a freshly waxed one, you surely cannot believe that takes much time at all. Even with my super fiddly E-cargo bike it takes at most five minutes. Breaking the links is at most ten seconds. After that it's just putting on a chain and quick link. It's faster than oiling a chain.


I'm pretty far away from OCD. I don't wash our bikes. Tried washing chains briefly and decided it wasn't for me. Much fuss for next to no gain and a huge fuss getting rid of the wash chemicals.

With hot wax no need for washing or harsh chemicals. Also If the chains were wearing at the same rate as with oil I'd be looking into replacing around twelve chains right about know after three years of waxing. However I'm not registering any wear on even the cargo bike chains and those have gone through the wringer. 6000 miles, 90Nm of torque and regular 200kg loads as well as more than 1000km touring with 250kg loads should have caused some wear on the chains but there's nothing.