ColonelSanders

I've been watching a heap of bike maintenance videos on YouTube recently as I am about to get much more serious and disciplined about cleaning my bike and in particular the drivetrain.


It seems like after people degrease a chain, they then run soapy water over the chain to remove the degreaser, which obviously makes sense, but then they seem to suggest you can lube your chain pretty much straight away, after you have wiped it down with a dry cloth.


Surely there would still be some water on the chain and inside the rollers, so does the water not interfere with oil based lubes?


I know that for people who wax, they stress the importance of making sure your chain is bone dry before applying wax, so go to great lengths to make sure the chain is dry, including the good ol' oven bake.

Tony P.

I agree there can be water on the chain after cleaning. I crank backwards for a minute to get the remaining water out and I believe that should do it.

HillRider

The need for a bone dry chain, internally and externally, for wax lubing is the hot wax bath will boil out any water and may cause splashing of the wax as the steam escapes.

A chain just water rinsed externally and quickly should not have any water get inside the rollers and pins. However, if it is soaked in a water-based degreaser, it should be dried very thoroughly before relubing and that may require a warm oven.

Mo06

I leave mine out to dry in the sun... seems to do the job.

cyccommute 

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.

Tony P.

I have one more point that came to mind on this. Unless you immerse the chain in lube, you're not really going to get it into every nook and cranny. And doing so isn't necessary. To some extent the chain spreads lubricant during your ride.

TimothyH

I agree with @cyccommute in post number 5.

Soapy or otherwise, water should not be used to clean a chain.

Using water based cleaners is probably the least environmentally safe way to clean a chain. Rinsing simply flushes the oil and grease down the drain and into the sewer system or ground water.

Just use odorless mineral spirits in an old bike bottle. Let the chain air dry and use your favorite oil. That's all.



-Tim-

Mo06

3000 miles sounds like a very short life for a bike chain.

ThermionicScott 

Big +1 on good old mineral spirits. Works wonderfully and won't rust your chain while it dries. Even if a little remains inside the chain, it's compatible with petroleum-based lubes.

Iride01 

I pretty much agree with @cyccommute in post #5 above also. I think he is underestimating how long they'll last though. Or maybe he has his own quirks that satisfy him. My quirk is that I hardly do anything at all once I put a new chain on. At most I wipe off with a paper towel when it looks gritty and spray some cheap lithium grease on it or what ever I have available, even motor oil. I'm sure I go 8000 plus miles between changes. Maybe that will change now that I'm going from seven speed shimano to 11 speed. But until I have issues with it, I'll be on the same no-maintenance no worry schedule I've had for the last 45 plus years.

There was a time when I was pre-teen that I would completely disassemble the crank, wheel bearings and clean the chain on every three to four weeks. But then I met girls as a teen and never had the time to work on my bike.

pdlamb

YMMV. The last couple chains I ran to 3,000 miles required a cassette swap when I R&R'd the chain; mine last 2,000 miles before needing to be replaced.

FBinNY 

Of course it does. Oil wicks into the chain through capillary action, which is the same mechanism that allows paper towels to wipe up spills. Have you tried to wipe a spill with a wet paper towel.

Capillary action is a fairly strong effect and it's not easy to get water out of a chain. If you ever spilled anything on a glass topped table and had it run under the glass you know just how much it wants to stay there.

So, you must dry (really dry) a chain before applying any lubricant. Otherwise the newly applied stuff sits on top, and gets wiped back off.

In any case, I consider this somewhat academic, since I consider water washing a poor choice in the first place. Assuming chains want cleaning, they should be cleaned using a solvent appropriate to the lube that's there.

For most lubes the best choice is a petroleum distillate such as naphtha or mineral spirits, both of which will evaporate dry fairly quickly. These are opposed by some out of environmental concern, but that's easily addressed by saving, storing, and reusing the solvent.

A pint of mineral spirits can clean hundreds of chains over time. Compare that with the amount of detergent and crud you put into the sewer system when using water based cleaners.

AnkleWork

Drying adds to the ritual value of cleaning so you have that, which is nice.

ColonelSanders

Thank you for your comprehensive reply.

Perhaps this is an example were I have managed to confuse myself, as I was simply set to go with something like kerosene, but after seeing so many videos of people using various degreasers like a Simple Green or whatever and then going the soapy water route afterwards, it had swayed me.

I too wondered why they didn't go with water to flush out the soap afterwards.

What other names is mineral spirits known as? I don't think this term is widely used in Australia, unless mineral turpentine is the same as mineral spirits.

Is methylated spirits the same thing as mineral spirits? Is kerosene a mineral spirit?

Just out of curiosity, have you ever tried Squirt Lube and how did you think it compared to White Lightning?

As you use White Lightning, it would appear that if you tried Squirt, you preferred White Lightning, but nonetheless I thought I would ask.

ColonelSanders

Whilst I will be sticking with petroleum based lubes for a little while longer at the very least, I do want to give wax a go, so presumably to make that happen, I may need to use something other than mineral spirits as my degreasing/cleaning agent of my chain?

SHBR

Solvent may not be needed, I haven't used any for a few years now.

I tend to wipe my chain before it gets gritty, and re-apply lube as needed.

Most lubes have or act as a solvent, so its a bad idea to oil a dirty chain.

Water is the enemy of lubrication.

HillRider

Mineral Spirits are also available as OMS (odorless mineral spirits, a somewhat cleaned up mineral spirits) here in the US. Kerosine is a very close relative to Mineral Spirits as is "Stoddard solvent". In the UK and probably Australia, white spirits and mineral turpentine are the same as mineral spirits.

Methylated spirits is a form of denatured alcohol and is not suitable as a degreaser.

cyccommute 

Part of it is that people think the more complicated the procedure, the better it is. Another part is that people think that a "green" degreaser is better than that nasty old petroleum based one.

Thinking that "more complicated" is better is just plain wrong. The fewer steps you need to do to achieve the same result is usually better. The Simple Green is a "soap" so flushing with soapy water after is superfluous. But, yes, if you use soap (or Simple Green), it would be better to remove it with water because the degreaser is going to continue to "degrease" until it is saturated with the oil. Adding fresh chain lubricant to the degreaser is just asking for it to be removed, especially if you ride in rain.

The problem is that once you've used water you need to remove it. You can bake it off but that accelerates the oxidation of the metal which is something to avoid. You can let it evaporate but if you live where there is high humidity, that can take a very long time and again rust is an issue. You can chase it off with a water soluble solvent like acetone or ethanol but there goes the "green" factor.

Petroleum based solvents are less environmentally friendly but if you use less of them, they are less of a problem. The chain lube is petroleum based so when it is in contact with the "green" solvent that solvent is considered "polluted" and should really be treated the same way as any other polluted material. The problem is that a cup of petroleum solvent is easier to deal with than a gallon or so of polluted water.

Methylated spirits is our denatured alcohol. It is ethanol...the same alcohol as in sippin' whiskey...that has be adulterated to make it undrinkable. True "methylated spirits" would have methanol added to it to make it poisonous. There are many way to make ethanol undrinkable. One of the less toxic and more common ways to do it now is to add a compound that is extremely bitter.

Mineral turpentine is the same as mineral spirits. Other names may be white spirit, Varsol, solvent naphtha, Stoddard solvent, as well as others. Kerosene is related to mineral spirits but it is a higher boiling cut from petroleum. Mineral spirits evaporates a bit faster and cleaner without being highly flammable. It's flammable but the flash point is relatively high...between 20° to >55°C, depending on the mixture. Odorless mineral spirits has the higher flash point.

Never heard of Squirt Lube. I've tired some other "dry" lubes but have yet to find one that works as well for me as White Lightning.

cyccommute 

I have to break it to you that your chain is always getting gritty. It's the nature of an open drivetrain. The other issue is that the grit you can see poses no threat to your chain. Only the particles that are small enough to work down into the internal workings are going to damage the chain and those are going to be mostly, if not entirely, microscopic.

Wiping your chain removes the stuff you can see but does nothing to remove the microscopic material. If anything, it forces that material into the chain.

I'll agree that water is the enemy of lubrication but it has an ally in dirt.

cyccommute 

Unless you happen to want more than 4000 miles out of your cassette. Replacing a $20 chain...and you really don't to spend more than that on a chain...is cheaper than replacing a $60+ cassette. It's a whole lot cheaper than replacing a $20 chain and a $60+ cassette

SHBR

Sure chains will get gritty if left uncared for, and relubed without wiping away any accumulated muck first.

The microscopic grit is most likely metal from the chain itself, unavoidable.

I run every link through its full range of motion while wiping it, there is no grittiness after the grime is wiped off.

Also, its very important to wipe off the excess lube, this prevents most of the buildup.

5000KM is a short lifespan for a chain that has been well cared for.

ColonelSanders

There is a testing outfit that calls themselves Friction Facts that people seem to think are good at what they do and they found Squirt to be the best drip lube for reducing friction on one's chain, with only the hot dip wax of Molten Wax being a better product.

From 1m9sec mark, you can see their results and the lubes they tested.



There is also these pretty full throated endorsements by two guys who work at Trek and Specialized respectively, talking about how wonderful they think Squirt is.

TimothyH

Speed, watts and reduction in drag is probably the least important reason to use lube on a chain.

The purpose of lubricant is to reduce or prevent wear. I want my chain to stay clean and last a long time. That's the point of lube and all the studies which focus on speed miss that point entirely.

When it comes to speed, there are 853 things more important than lube.


-Tim-

ThermionicScott 

Cyclists in particular are easy to snow with trivial changes. Measure something in a lab, produce a bar chart, and they will fork over the money.

No way in hell would you actually feel the difference between most of these lubes on an actual ride. The watts wasted by your body position on the bike is orders of magnitude larger.

johnnyspaghetti

Step 1. Get out the charcoal lighter fluid & a toothbrush back turn that 3-speed freewheel till the crud/sand/dirt is dripping messing up the rim & tire badly. Both sides of chain + up & down on the link pin barrels, don't forget the crank sprocket teeth both sides. If it gets real messy then you know you have used enough fliuid.
Step 2. Then with a more generous portion of dawn dish soap than absolutely nessesary & water-repeat step #1.
Step 3. Get the hose & wash off the mess. Get dry rages & wipe down what you can keeping in mind you want things to be relatively crud free & mostly dry. I use transmission oil now but not shy to use engine oil out of a squirt can do the hubs & chain using a small piece of sponge or foam soak in the currently avaiiable oil and apply to chain. This chain is 49 years old.