wacky, it worked before removing the rear wheel for cleaning. In any case, it'll have to wait for the weekend, as the road calls *ducks out to that other part of bikeforums*

Nope. Most chains are made from iron or iron alloy. Even stainless steel is still largely iron.

Yup! They are made of steel but steel is mostly iron with some stuff added to make it harder. To see what the iron (steel) bits on your bike are use a magnet. If the magnet sticks it can rust (with the exception of some stainless steels but I doubt that you have that ) and you want to get it dry.

Cleaning your bike shouldn't have done anything to your derailer unless you got something in the cables. You may want to readjust your cables (maybe relube them also).

think a non polar carbon chain is lighter than my SRAM?

SOunds mighty tempting to me.

Just keep it away from open flame !

I was being facetious. I understand that iron is a major component of steel.

However, water is a major component of tequila, and they are not the same thing by any stretch.

An iron chain would have to weigh pounds to achieve the equivalent strength of steel.

its all still ferrous

Except in water the sodium ion is off playing footsy with all those cute water molecules - swappin' electrons back and forth and completely ignoring the carbon chain that brung it to the dance

Ah but tequila is just water with tasty bits in it And it has far more tasty bits than iron does to make it steel

so what your saying is, in order to snag some fine sodium ion, and swap some electrons I just need to be H20, hmmmm... wheres an outside the box plastic surgeon when you need one

But sodium ions are really bad boys. They take your OH and leave you to go play with other waters. They'll just break your heart

The stuff to watch out for is dihydrogen monoxide - it's almost everywhere. Lots of details at https://www.dhmo.org/

The number of deaths caused each year by dihydrogen monoxide every year is staggering. When will the government act to save us from this menace within our midst? Fortunately, my masters' in chemistry has equipped me well to deal with the wily monster.

I think washing a bike in water and detergent or any product that turns grease into soap is a bad idea.

Ask your wife of girl friend why she doesn’t wash her hair right after she gets a perm.

Why would you remove all the protective oil and lubrication from your drive train and take it down to bare unprotected metal when all you really want to do is get the dirt and grit out?

If you have a non-plated chain then it is going to form a thin coat of rust in just the time it takes to dry once all the oil is removed. That rust is very abrasive and will mix with the new lubricant that you add.

The solution to all this is a product that is perfect for us, WD40. It comes out of the can under pressure and can be directed in a small focused stream that will dissolve and flow away the grit. It is formulated to displace any water that is trapped inside the links of your chain and is designed to inhibit rust.


As to the recent turn of this thread…. Steel is not iron with bits in it to make it stronger. There is no iron in steel. Steel is made from iron ore in a blast furnace that blows oxygen into molten iron to add carbon atoms to its chemical structure and change it into steel.
Other metals in small amounts are added to steel to make all the different types used in manufacturing, this is called alloying. All the various types of stainless steels are a class of steel alloys, so they are all ferris metals, but most are not magnetic.

The reason that hair isn't washed after a perm is that the sulfur compounds used during the process need time to complete reaction. Washing the hair after application removes the sulfur compounds and leads to incomplete curling - and angry women

While I agree with you that rust is abrasive, removing the oil and lubrication from the metal by water soluble detergents isn't going to happen in your backyard. Water based detergents just aren't that efficient without mechanical means. Also there is nothing magical about the lubrication added during manufacture of the chain. It must be refreshed often anyway. Complete removal, using solvents, would only require application of more lubricant. If water is used, the water should be displaced to avoid rusting. But the process of air oxidation of iron isn't so rapid that you need to do it immediately. A few minutes won't hurt.

WD40 is a solvent that will remove all of protective oils that you want to keep. True it will leave behind another protective oil but it is one that isn't that good and will only serve to dilute the lubrication you should add after cleaning anyway.

An alloy is a homogeneous mixture of elements where some elements can be metal or nonmetal depending on the alloy. It is made when the metals are liquid and, as with any homogeneous mixture (also known as a solution), the components of the mixture can be separated by physical means because no chemical reaction occurs during mixing.

Iron ore is commonly iron oxide with an oxidation state of either II or III (more commonly know as rust ). During refining, the iron in the iron ore is reduced from an oxidized state to the ground state where it becomes elemental iron; a ductile, maleable, conductive metal. When in the molten state, other elements - both metal and nonmetal- can be added (alloyed) with the iron to form a metal with different properties. During this process, however, the iron does not chemically combine with the other constituents. There is no, for example, iron carbide formed. The iron exists as elemental iron and the carbon exists as elemental carbon. The way that we know that the iron is present as elemental iron is that chemical compounds, where the oxidation state of the metal is changed, result in compounds that are crystalline, brittle and, for the most part, nonconductive. This is also why steels (unless they are stainless) rust. The iron present is in the ground state and can be oxidized.

Stainless steels are magnetic unless they have a high nickel content. However, these are rather exotic and not commonly used on bicycles. If you were to use a magnetic on a bicycle, anything that the magnet will stick too will probably rust in the presence of water.

uh.. dude, I don't even know where to begin.

What you are saying is basically true but the way you are stating it is misleading and probably means nothing to a layperson. My degrees are not in chemistry but I do have one in metallurgy, and a more understandable way to express the way an alloy structure exists at STP is that its expanded metal matrix allows molecules of other elements to enter and then as they cool traps them in place and by this mechanism the whole takes on different properties. The only way to remove them is by melting down the alloy. You can’t just pick them out with tweezers as your ‘by mechanical means’ implies.

Referring to carbon steel products as Iron is just wrong in all of modern industry, perhaps it is the norm among those that eat at the periodic table, I just don’t know.

There are many types of stainless steel, and almost none of them are used in bikes. The gun industry uses many types, most food handling machines make extensive use of it, and it is used where atheistic is valued over strength. The fairly new development of Maraging steel as an available product is of course the contradiction as it is classed as a stainless.

Non of this is relevant at all to how you should clean your bike. Telling people a bunch of crap to distract or derail the thread away from it’s original point is as ludicrous as calling water by some obscure technical nomenclature, unless your only purpose is to confuse the poor nobs that don’t know any better.

Don’t worry man, It's ok to be confused.



It's not that hard… Water is the enemy you displace it with a product that is designed to do that, WD40.


Once you introduce carbon into the latis structure of metallic iron it becomes steel and is no longer iron. Even though it is comprised of elemental iron molecules and carbon on the molecular level.

If you are focusing on the molecules you can’t see the big picture.

you guys and your molecular chains

i am going to one up all of you and start taking my chain off and lay it in bed beside me at night

WD40 is also awesome to have around the garage along w/ a lighter. You know, to kill those pesky black widows...

Anyway, I usually use whatever commercial degreaser is available at the bike shop. It's much more convenient than running inside for the dishsoap. After a shake down I use WD40 for the that water displacement trick. Then comes the Tri-Flow

God, I LOVE Tri-Flow

All these beautiful women in your avatar and you're still lonely at nights.....*shakes head* what a shame.

those would be fantasies...

shall i send you a ticket to kirksville, missouri?

I have 64 stainless steel items on my bikes

And you miss the little picture. The iron in steel has not undergone any change that makes it not act like iron. It still oxidizes. It still atracts a magnet. It is still Fe. I'm so glad I switched from engineering to chemistry in college, so now I'm not completely clueless.