The key to your statement is “without evidence”. I’ve been saying that all along. There is no evidence that any kind of melting is occurring. I can’t accept your hypothesis that wax is melting in the chain because there is no evidence that the wax is melting. Melting requires heat and it would leave traces. This article discusses the properties of wax and has this information on the properties of wax.

Any phase change of the wax would require heat or release heat. Materials can’t cycle melting and freezing cycles without shedding heat to the surroundings. In other words, the wax would heat up, hold heat, and release some to the chain. There would be traces of heat in the chain. I will again point you to the ice skating example where there are heat traces in the tracks behind the skates and the temperature differential there is far smaller.

Your “wax melting” notion is a “trust me” notion. Present some evidence that it is happening.

Again, I can’t “entertain a notion” that has no basis in reality. Let’s consider your “notion”. Your possibilities are in direct opposition to each other. If 2 happens, 1 cannot happen. If 1 happens, 2 cannot happen. You can’t have the wax melting so that water would flow it out of the pressure point will simultaneously preventing the wax from melting. Further, oil, being more mobile, would be carried out of the pressure point by the water as well.

And what does the hair drier do? It provides heat to melt the wax. Heat!! Why would extra heat be needed if the wax is melting during use? Your “notion” falls apart on investigation. But my point about wax not dissolving in water has to do with everyone…everyone…saying that wax is washed off in water. It isn’t. It can’t be.

Nope. My hypotheses are consistent. Oil is fluid and back fills the pressure point after being pushed out. Wax is a plastic solid and doesn’t backfill. Oil chains die due to grit carried in with the oil. Waxed chains die because of metal-on-metal wear.

Yes, I’m a chemist. I’m also a bicycle rider with a lot of mechanical experience. “Arguing from authority” is a valid argument if you actually back up your arguments from authority. I’ve used numerous sources and backed up my arguments with solid, known science. You haven’t. Please provide something that backs up your wax melting idea.

By the way, I looked up abrasion strips. It’s a thing I do when presented with something I’m not familiar with. The abrasion strips are there to prevent abrasion from abrasives. They also keep the leading edges of the propeller protected against rain damage due to impact of the rain. Damage due to the impact of rain is because rain has mass and the propellers are moving at high speeds both linearly and angularly. There is nothing I can find that suggests rain is an abrasive on propellers.

Saying that water is “abrasive” is silly.

Round and round.

You know chains produce heat because chains wear out due to friction. Yet you claim there couldn't possibly be enough heat to melt a few micrograms of wax!


The two possibilities don't have to both be true for one of them to be true. Look up how the word "or" works and apply it to that situation.


There is no way that a soft solid can lubricate 2000 psi steel linear contact points for 10 hours at a stretch. There is simply no basis for such a fantastic claim. It doesn't matter that you think the chain is wearing the whole time - the evidence is that the chain takes all that time to have enough dry contact to start squeaking.

If water can wear something from inertia, it can wear something from pressure and surface tension. Or friction. It is matter and obeys all the same rules as other matter.

Not waxing your chain is a major time saver. Because if you do wax your chain, you have to tirelessly proselytize about the benefits of waxing. This consumes untold hours online, and in-person at bike swap meets and the bike shops you haven't (yet) been banned from for being a high-maintenance cheap bore.

Chains: bike cheap. Replace often.

When you want to show you're right more than you want to give information, it's time to give it a rest.

I want to discuss the issue and have the answer revealed by whoever.

All while ridiculing someone who points out where you are wrong. If you haven't noticed that this is your apparent motivation, I just pointed it out to you. My friend, this is tiresome. I don't know what you're hoping for, maybe him getting into the fetal position and groveling and saying "you were right all along," but whatever you want, accept that you won't be getting it. You've misinterpreted things that have been said here and made silly claims. I'm not a chemist, and I know water is not abrasive. Try a bit of kindness. Be kind to yourself first and then to everyone else.

Where was the noglider guide to kindness when Cycomute came into the thread and was immediately condescending? Or are only the people you agree with allowed to be brusque?

And yes, I have changed my mind and said so in situations just like that on forums.

You seem to have some insight into how this works. Why don't you lend your thoughts on how wax lubes a chain instead of playing partisan Miss Manners?

Are you pointing out that I'm not treating the two of you equally? He's been unkind to you. Now do you feel better?

I have not indicated that I'm an expert in chain lube, so I'm surprised you ask me for my opinion on that matter.

Truly but not for the reasons you think.

No. Chains don’t produce heat, at least not a lot of it. That’s what the Johns Hopkins study showed. They saw no heat production even on a chain that didn’t have any lubricant. The friction the chain produces is very low and is too low to melt even a tiny amount of wax. And again, melting of even a microgram of wax would leave a trace of heat. Demonstrate that wax can be melted without heat and we can talk.


Your scenario has to work at the same time. If you have liquid wax that can be pushed out by water, you can’t have the water cooling the wax to prevent it from moving back. If you the water cools the wax and prevents it from melting, you can’t have liquid wax in the pressure point to be pushed out by the water. You simply can’t have it both ways.

That’s what the John Hopkins study showed. They had no lubrication and showed no appreciable heat production. That indicates that friction is extremely low and that lubrication, which is needed to reduce friction, has little impact.

Surface tension? Where did that come from? I’m not saying that chains don’t wear because they aren’t under pressure. Far from it. But water has little to do with chain wear and less to do with removal of lubricant. If wax is “washed away” by water, oil would be too. Oil would be easier to float off the chain and pressure points than wax. It is mobile. If the oil washed off with water, we’d expect it to perform worse in water than wax, or at least as badly. It doesn’t so there has to be a different mechanism at work here than any kind of physical removal by water.

noglider, I admire your making the effort, but I recommend resuming your usual neutrality. You're wasting your time. One of the two is right, both are convinced they're right, and both are relentless. This will go on until these sucker M.C.'s square off in a rap battle.

You certainly had enough expertise to label my claims silly.

I want you to think about how many times you've ever seen me be wildly off base about anything on this forum. I am a smart cookie, whether I'm right or not about chain wax. If I have an opinion about this stuff, it is because I have a very good sense for how things work, which is why I have been so successful and making and fixing and diagnosing things. I find this topic interesting, and if Cyccommute doesn't want to respectfully discuss it, we can do it without respect.

There is no version of reality where steel wears against steel without heat. As I have previously pointed out, if the heat is localized enough and small enough, it is going to disappear into the background temp of the device overall. Even without direct wear, you can't transmit work through a pivot system with zero heat waste.

So you either don't understand that, or you are using a macro view of chain temperature to say that there can't be tiny heat spikes - like trying to see a candle from an IR camera on an aircraft.

They aren't the same - if the pressure that crushes the wax melts it, then water could fill that gap instead of the wax when the pressure comes back down. Or, the presence of the water could prevent the wax from ever melting, and it acts as a solid and is crushed out of the way instead of liquified.

Those are two entirely different situations. Whether you think they happen or not, there is absolutely no way to confuse "displace liquid" with "prevent melting". And this is the kind of thing you do that makes me wonder.
Or, the heat is below whatever threshold.
Once you've seen enough cavitated pumps, worn props and other things that are worn out by pressure or impact from water, you begin to realize that there is a reason we generally don't use water as a lubricant. Its high surface tension relative to oils is part of the reason it cavitates and it fails to form the films oils do.

I apologize for hurting your feelings.

:lol: Most people end that sentence with "then I won't discuss it at all."

You didn't hurt my feelings, Tom. But you offered an opinion that I couldn't be right, so you have an opinion about what is possible or not.

Remember the thread where I explained how a V shaped rim is dynamically different than a box rim? Did that sound like someone that just talks out of his butt?

No, I don't remember that. I was probably not following that thread.

I'm not saying you're always wrong. You appear to be reading things that are not said. Be careful.

My main point to you was that this thread has become sanctimonious and has outlived its usefulness. The dispute appears to be an attempt to win which shows that it's no longer offering advice on chain care.

Post 88.
https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-v...ke-feel-3.html

But if one guy thinks two other people should no longer discuss something...

I'm having trouble understanding. You wanted to point out that you don't make stuff up. And you quote me thanking you for telling me new stuff. And I had forgotten about it, so you reminded me. And this is why you're annoyed at me?

Tell me what you want. I might be able to provide it.

I don't think that water per se makes a difference in the lubricity of wax lube, plus or minus. However, as mentioned above, the water could pull contaminants/dirt from the outside, into the internals of the chain (by capillary action), and that can be very critical, whereas running dry with only wax, things like metal particles will only flow outward. What would help this is O-ring or X-ring chain, which both seals factory grease in, and contaminants out. I don't know much about them, only that they are used on motorcycles. X-ring reportedly has lower friction and greater durability than O-ring:


https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...26f5d59471.png

Rival factions:

un-lubed metal on metal friction that doesn't produce heat... wow.

y'all just need to STHU and go ride yer bikes.

just... wow.
post #194... and did ANY ONE say why the gravel bike needs chain lube more often?

nope.
:roflmao2::roflmao2::roflmao2::roflmao2::roflmao2:
get a life.

Red cinder "gravel" is about as close to PUMICE as it can get, without floating in water.. it's POROUS as heck... a Rocky SPONGE.
and Diatomaceous Earth is FLOOR DRY.. add some scent and it becomes KITTY LITTER.

all that brain power and no one deduced the answer, but by golly, let's waste a couple days arguing the same off topic thing for the twentieth time in a year... or more.

i'm gonna go put the stack of tools i used today away now... try not insult each other too badly, ok?

SHEESH!

The two thoughts were not connected. Out of respect for you, I'll depart.

Is it done? Is it over?🫣

I admit that I have been snarky at times but, for the most part, I have explained my view (with references) in as much of a nonconfrontational manner as possible. You are no angel either. You have implied that I’m stupid because I’m a chemist. That’s impugning my character which is something I don’t think I’ve done to you. You have also brought up topics from other posts which I most certainly have not done. I will endeavor to not be as snarky going forward. How about you do some soul searching as well.

And I have pointed out that the frictional heat in a chain is extremely low as well. Too low, in fact, to melt wax in any manner. If the amount of heat is enough to “disappear into the background”, there is not enough heat to melt the wax. If there were enough heat to melt the wax…even a small amount…it would not “disappear into the background”.

I understand the heat in a chain from friction. You can’t seem to grasp that it is a very small amount incapable of doing magic.

And here is the major problem with your hypothesis and why you can’t seem to grasp what I am saying. There is no need to melt the wax to move it out of the pressure point. Wax is plastic enough for it to be moved out mechanically. It is squeezed out like toothpaste from a tube. And, just like toothpaste from a tube, it can’t really be squeezed back into the pressure point. And, because there’s no latent heat evident in the chain, the wax isn’t melting. Yes, I agree that the water fills the gap after pressure is removed. That’s how the water gets into the gap to cause corrosion that results in squeaking. The rust expands as it is formed…iron oxide has a lower density than steel…and is trapped in the gap resulting in sound.

And, yes, water would prevent your mythical melting which would make the wax move out of the joint as a plastic substance as per above. Either way, there is not heat needed nor involved. You are the one who has introduced a melting mechanism where none is needed. What you also fail to grasp is that any heat produced would be sucked off by the cold metal which is a better conductor of heat than the wax, resulting in the wax also freezing.

Another point that you are missing the wax (water or oil) can’t move into the pin/plate interface under pressure. It could only flow back in once pressure is removed. That’s the way that oil works. When the chain engages the teeth of the cogs and chain rings, the lubricant is forced out and remains out as long as the pressure persists. When the chain comes off the top of the cassette and off the bottom of the chainring, the oil can flow back into the gap mostly under gravity with, perhaps a tiny bit of capillary action. That process is going to be relatively slow as well. The oil will flow back into the gap while the chain is traveling from chainring to cog and cog to chainring. For your melt idea to work, the wax would have to stay fluid enough to be able to flow back into the gap once pressure is removed. The cog/chainwheel gap is too great for the wax to stay liquid without the chain experiencing heat. I’ve done hot waxing and I know that the wax on the chain starts to solidify as soon as it is removed from the melt or the wax instantly solidifies if a cold chain is dropped into the hot wax. The same would occur as the chain comes off the last gear tooth. What little heat that is produced…and I’ll admit that there isn’t zero heat produced…quickly radiates away from the chain, taking with it any heat that could keep the wax liquid enough to flow back into the gap.

I’d also like to address the pressure. Assuming your 20,000 psi pressure you previously present, you have failed to grasp (as did I until recently) that the 200 pound load is spread across all the teeth that the chain engages on the chainrings and the cassette. For example, in a 40 tooth chainwheel/20 tooth cassette cog combination, half of the teen are engaged on each one. That’s 30 teeth. The 200 lb rider load and the pressure produced would be spread across those 30 teeth. 20,000 psi suddenly becomes 600 psi per tooth. Still a lot but a lot less than what you were thinking.

Exactly. Too far below the threshold to melt wax.

Pumps, propellers, and other mechanical objects worn by water share something in common that bicycle chains do not. Speed. Pumps and propellers don’t spin at 90 revolutions per minute. I’m not saying that water is a great lubricant but at the speed of the chain on a bicycle, it’s not going to do the things that water can do at hundreds to thousands of RPM.

No. Doesn’t produce much heat. There’s a difference. The area of friction is small, the force on that area is fairly low, and the speed of the action on the materials doing the friction is slow. There’s also a fairly long period where friction isn’t happening on the chain elements. The part of the chain that is engaged on the teeth of the gears is 2 to 3 times smaller than the chain traveling from and to those gears. The small amount of heat generated would quickly radiate off after the chain leaves the gear.

And yet you took time out of your bike riding to post.

As to why the gravel bike needs more frequent lubing, it is absolutely okay to say “I don’t know”. A mountain bike should encounter the same or similar materials as the gravel bike does so it should need just as frequent lubrication. Perhaps they use different chains. Perhaps the mountain bike makes more noise during rides so rosefarts doesn’t hear the chain. Perhaps he is misremembering how often he lubricates the chain on the mountain bike or is riding the gravel bike more often.

Perhaps you have other ideas. You haven’t offered much so far.

Nah bro, it’s just getting started.