Hiro11

After one season of immersion waxing chains on several bikes, this is the exact conclusion I came to.

cxwrench

Sy Reene

I thought these were the tests generally referred to, which aren't MSP's. I don't bother with hot wax either, but I do think there's some minor advantage to doing so if you really want to bother.
https://zerofrictioncycling.com.au/w...vember-22.xlsx

TMonk

My solvent and ultrasonic baths comment was meant to be directed towards other wax users, sorry for not specifying. I'm still of the opinion that wax can be done lightly. If one prefers a clean drivetrain, and lives in a dry climate, it can be the path of least resistance.

SoSmellyAir

You got me there.

TMonk

I tried the MSW protocol last time, and it was too much work for my taste. Previously, I soaked overnight in degreaser to remove packing grease, and did nothing between paraffin baths, Light, easy, clean, no big deal. It's pretty easy to remove and re-install a chain tbh

DaveSSS 

Three bikes being used in the rotation. It was only two. Not sure if they'll all get equal mileage.
Someone has to ask about chain management. They are all draped over a long bolt. Newly cleaned and lubed chain goes in the back, next to be used comes off the front. Real simple.

Lombard

I checked out Zero Friction's website. They sell lots of expensive stuff nobody really needs. Nuff said.

asgelle

Not quite. If you really checked them out, you'd know the selling came after the testing, and for the most part, what they sell is manufactured by others.

big john

Obviously it's a joke. Sheldon had some funny ones.
Saddles for REAL MEN! (sheldonbrown.com)

big john

I've ridden with some of them. One guy, a decent rider, not fast but good bike handler, was obsessed with his bike. It was always spotless, perfect. One time we did a long ride through the mountains and there was a water crossing, maybe an inch or 2 deep and 30 or 40 feet wide. We all rode through except that guy, who took his shoes and socks off and walked across. We were all surprised.

Another guy I rode with was a pretty fast cat 3 on the road and cat 2 on the track. Also rode off road on his road bike, which looked like crap most of the time. Mud could be caked on, road grime, whatever. He didn't care.

I think many of us are somewhere in the middle. I clean my bikes sometimes but if there is wet weather I don't bother. It's a tool, not a jewel.

Lombard

I used to know a woman who would always give her bike a thorough wipe down with baby wipes after club rides. Talk about OCD.

And then there was the guy who lubed his bike with WD-40. He would just spray it on the chain and he never wiped the excess off either. Needless to say, his drivetrain was always horribly filthy.

SoSmellyAir

And all of these bikes sharing chains work with the same chain length?

DaveSSS 

Yes. I can use a 10-33 or 10-36 cassette with a 55 inch chain that's long enough to wrap the big/big. It would work with a 10-28 too. Only the B gap needs to be corrected for each cassette.

​​​​​All three of my bikes have 415mm chain stays and 46/30 cranks.

big john

I knew another guy who was so obsessed with his bike he insisted on stopping at a coin car wash after the club ride he was on rode through some mud that had flowed onto the road. I was riding alongside him one day and I ran over a ketchup packet and some of it squirted on his bike. If looks could kill.....

base2 

Funny. I was on their website today too. There is much to be said in the chain testing data file. Particularly concerning the different types of chain wear, the types of chain wear measured by different checkers & the accuracy potential. Not to mention the detailed write up on chain construction. It's worth the read.

The test methods are clear, easily understood & the results appear robust.

The cost to go 10,000km has all the expected reservations & caveats you would expect for a data model to retain credibility.

Yep. They sell wax. They sell chains. They do testing and stock products based on the test results. Others don't do testing & sell whatever...What would you have the guy do? Spend all kinds of money, time, resources to test all the things & sell the worst performing? To sell a random assortment of randomness the distributor sends like everyone else?

Read the data files. It's all pretty transparent. Even the bit about Squirt & others were the flag note concerning initial penetration & proper application confound the results. He's right. The problem is the application method. The test procedure treats it like a wet lube.

I like that I have yet to wear out a Squirt waxed Ultegra/XTR chain other than the one that would very squarely fit in the block 6 of the testing regimen...& even then, my experience was consistent. He states it would've been 17 chains to go 10,000k. Or more plainly 588k to a chain. That's 365 miles. I got 500 miles out of mine (with proper initial penetration) & it measured 120% worn by the time I finished the trip.

My oil based chain results conform to his models reasonably well, too.

Anecdote of 1? Ok. But, anecdote of one repeated many times?

Aside from the sunk time cost of initial cleaning what's there to lose? Pride? $250 cassettes & $200 chainrings get expensive when your not getting 15,000-20,000 miles out of either.

I look forward to my Molten Speed Wax/Wipperman 11sx experiments. The Australian has yet to be proven wrong.

tomato coupe

For many people, time is a valuable commodity. Spending time to squeeze more miles out of a disposable component doesn't always make sense.

phrantic09

I’m middling at best at bicycle mechanics and my total time waxing chains is approximately 10 minutes every two weeks. I don’t get the time sink argument.

tomato coupe

Do some math. How much does a chain cost and how long does it last? How much does waxing extend the life of a chain? Finally, how much is your time worth? For many people, that last factor means it's not worth it to them to wax.

phrantic09

My time is worth quite a bit, but I choose to have a clean drivetrain with negligible effort. Turning on a crockpot at 10:30, pulling chains out of wax at 12:00 eating lunch for 10 minutes, breaking links free and reinstalling the chain take 5 minutes. Far faster than cleaning off a gunky drivetrain and re-applying lube every 75-100 miles.

To each their own. I just meant it’s not the super-time consuming process it’s being made out to be.

Lombard

I just checked. A 105 11-speed chain costs $25 and a 105 11-speed cassette costs $57. Let's do the math. My current 50/50 oil/mineral spirits homebrew lube every 500 miles gets me at least 8K miles, but more like 10K miles out of a chain. Let's just say for argument's sake that a cassette needs to be replaced every second chain replacement (although I've never worn out a cassette). And for simplicity, since I ride about 3000 miles per year, let's say I get about 9000 miles out of a chain. So that turns out to be $25 at the 3 year mark and then $82 at the 6 year mark.

The cheapest crockpot costs about the same as a bicycle chain - $25. One pound of Molten Speedwax costs another $25. And how many uses can you get out of a pot of hot wax before you need to replace it? Plus all that extra time spent.

And again, none of you here in the hot wax cult have yet responded with how many miles you get from your hot waxed chains. NONE OF YOU.

As we used to say, it sounds like you're all head and no shaft.

tomato coupe

It's worth it to you. No problem. Why is it so hard to understand that many other people don't find it to be worth their time?

Lombard

75-100 miles?? Really, that's some really lousy lube that needs to be applied that often. The only lube I know of that is that bad is White Lightning.

Even most drip wax lubes will last 200 miles between lubing. Oil based wet lubes will last 500 miles easily.

phrantic09

Oh, I understand it. There’s just been a lot of conjecture about how long it takes, which my experience doesn’t align with.

Its not right for everyone, I get that. IME the positives outweigh the negatives, but there are caveats of course. I did a gravel race last April where it rained all day, the wax was washed out by the end.

spelger

i mentioned what i get in post 527 and 535. its just approximate though. my cost to do this is a $5 crock from good will, $1.25 for gulf wax, two free empty jars of peanut butter for cleaning and maybe a couple of bucks for OMS.

i don't consider myself to be in a cult. i don't go crazy over it and i'm not trying to convince anyone to do it. i don't really spend much time on it, i do it because i like doing it. the whole process probably takes about 2 hours each time but i only spend about 5-10 minutes actually doing anything. mostly time is spent sitting in the OMS and melting wax while i am cleaning something or working on car. when wax is melted i pull out the chain that has been sitting in frozen wax for a month and drop in the clean one, shut off crock and set it back on teh shelf for next month.

i'm almost wanting to try going back to drip lube but i really don't like the mess (or the perceived mess). i do recall using that blue park chain cleaning tool. hated it. always made such a mess. first time i used it a real mess was on the floor then started putting cardboard down to catch the mess. still had to clean bits of the bike though. maybe i used it wrong but i don't think so.