tomato coupe

If one cassette made it to 35,000 miles, why do you need 3 cassettes for 50,000 miles?

bblair

Squirt lube all the way.

I just finished cleaning my bike and chain using Dawn dish liquid. Chain and bike are shiny, squeaky clean. What's the big deal? I'll drip more Squirt on tonight and ready to roll in the morning. Quiet and clean. 2 minutes.

base2 

I one hundred percent agree.
The thing is though, is to run the chain backwards round & round for a minute or two to really work it into the rollers. Then, a follow up drop on each roller for good measure.
It seems that people who don't do this find it doesn't perform as well as molten immersion. We'll, of course it didn't; it never made it "inside."

The other caveat is it needs to dry, as in completely dry. The water in the emulsion has to physically leave the bike in a gaseous form for the wax to be left behind. Else the water ******* the wax back out of the roller by the various forces while in use. IOW: You can't simply put a drop on each roller & immediately go for a ride. That's not how it works.

User error on both counts.

Kapusta

I do.

surak

I've recently started chain waxing. Initially put off by a pretty underwhelming experience using Squirt drip lube where the standard rigamarole of multiple OMS baths and denatured alcohol rinse still didn't clean my chains enough to not turn into a black and sticky mess after a single ride.

I had some Silca Hot-Melt sitting around for a year while I used up the bottle of Squirt, and otherwise used NixFrixShun and Synergetic wet lubes on my various bikes. What pushed me over was ZFC's updated recommendation to use CeramicSpeed UFO drivetrain cleaner, which is non-toxic and requires a short immersion and a minute of shaking before a hot water rinse. Having an actually clean chain after a ride has been a revelation.
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I'd like to try the Effetto Mariposa drip wax, if I could only find it in stock at any of the places I buy bike gear. I don't want to blow through expensive quick links so I get by with topping off the chain using Silca's drip wax every couple hundred kms, but it's noticeably inferior to immersion.

WhyFi

I know that there are a couple of true one-use quick links out there, but the Shimano ones, that specify that they not to be reused, are meant to be paired with one chain for the lifetime of that chain; you can take them off and put them back on, they just don't want you reusing it on another chain once the first wears out. That said, I'll still replace a quick link if it starts to get too easy to pop on and off.

masi61

What brand of chain did you get 10,000 miles out of? Just curious. I have heard that Campagnolo chains last the longest but maybe Wippermann too since they seem built in a similar fashion. I have been trying different brands of chains and must say that the KMC and SRAM chains I have used get to ~ 0.75%-1% elongation in as little as 1800 or 2000-ish miles. I’m liking the Wippermann, Taya and Campagnolo (C-9) chains I have been running on my 3x9 and 2x10 club racing bikes.

I have been waxing for 2 years now. I prioritize “quietness” on my bike. A newly waxed chain is nicely silent and stays that way for a while. I’m gonna be honest and admit that the plain gulf canning wax in mini-crock pot seems to partly flake off after about ~100 miles of riding. When the chain get to this point I can hear a gnashing sound when applying a lot of torque to the cranks. I’ve become OCD lately about always being in the correct gear and keeping the torque no more than moderate.

I like chain waxing enough and it is habitual now that even with only about 3 or 4 forty+ mile rides on one chain before swapping it out for its partner (I’m doing a 2 chain per bike system and always have the next freshly waxed one ready to go) - I am still committed to continue the waxing program into the future. Just wanted to clarify the statement that waxing prolongs chain life. In my experience it does not. But I’m OK with that.

The_woo

ZFC suggests YBN chains are the best for waxing & longevity. Some models actually come with no factory grease on them at all.

surak

I've seen a rough estimate of safely being able to reuse a quick link 5 times, so let's say I immersion wax every 500-600km, that's well short of the total expected lifetime of a waxed chain. Using lube and a 105 chain that gets replaced more often might actually be cheaper than what I'm doing, which is using DA chains for their supposed longevity and lower friction.

I'm getting a new MTB this week and will definitely clean and wax the 12 speed chain. Given the lower mileage I don't expect to take the chain off that often, and I'd much rather be able to wipe the chain down than have to go through the full degreasing and cleaning process.

bblair

[QUOTE=surak;22620513]I've recently started chain waxing. Initially put off by a pretty underwhelming experience using Squirt drip lube where the standard rigamarole of multiple OMS baths and denatured alcohol rinse still didn't clean my chains enough to not turn into a black and sticky mess after a single ride.

Overkill, I have never done that. Just clean the new chain with a rag and degreaser and off ya go. Then Dawn dish soap.

Here is this morning's effort. Honest, chain and whole bike in less than 5 minutes. Not show quality, but clean enough to avoid the "Cat 5 tatoo."

Litespud

I've been waxing for a number of years. A $13 small crockpot lives in the garage. I fashioned an Al "basket" that keeps the chain off the accumulated crud on the bottom. I buy a cassette and 3 chains at a time, initially degrease the chains and then rotate them ~300 mi/chain. Before routine rewaxing, I brush bits off the chains with a stiff-bristle cassette brush. The 3x chain waxing process involves turning on the crockpot, getting on with my day for a few hours, then dumping in a chain for ~1 hr, retrieving the chain, brushing off the next and dropping it in, then repeating the process with the third chain. The total hands-on is maybe 15 min for the lot, and I have ~1000 miles-worth of waxed chain ready to go. Also a routinely clean chain and cassette is a marked difference from wet lube, where I could clean everything to sparkling, and it would all be black after 10 miles. Also no black fingers if I have to pull the rear wheel for a flat.

I started with a couple of lb of wax granules off Amazon, but I'll use any wax - makes little difference that I can see. Someone gave us some pretty ugly home-made candles - into the crockpot they went

WhyFi

You're not comparing apples-to-apples. He was talking about the initial chain cleaning process which, when waxing, is 90%+ of the drivetrain work for the lifetime of the chain. After that's done, most people that wax will not clean their chain or drivetrain again.

eduskator

Well, wax or lube, you need to deep clean your chain at certain intervals as well... You can't just wipe it with a rag and add lube every once in a while, it needs more loooove than that. I would tend to say that a waxed chain is easier to clean because it attracts less dirt, dust, crap, etc.

Extra work is indeed involved at the beginning, but the return on investment seems to be worth it.

cxwrench

Please. 'Drastically' reduces drive train friction? How much? Chain drivetrains are very very efficient. Even if you gain 20% that's what...1-2 watts? There is no way that it's a time saver. It takes mere seconds for me to lube a chain. Hell, I could stop multiple times in the middle of a ride to lube my chain and it would still be more time efficient. Some people will overdo, over think, and try to convince everyone else that their method is by far the best. If it was so much better in so many ways tell me one thing. One thing only. Why are there no Pro teams doing this? I'll wait.

big john

Did I insult you somehow? What made you stoop to being such a dick?

No, I didn't get my bike from a dumpster. I've never paid more than about $65 for a cassette. I use Miche cassettes on my Campagnolo 10 speed. They are on sale right now, I should order one.
Miche Primato 10x Cassette | ProBikeKit.com

Branko D

Personally, switched from Squirt to UFO Lube, much cleaner, allegedly faster and longer drivetrain life, not that it was bad with Squirt (I tended to bin the chain at 6500km not because it was worn but because I'd have a big event coming up and would want to do it on a fresh chain). I read about waxing, but... you know, I just can't be bothered.

tomato coupe

You don’t have to touch the chain when you remove the rear wheel.

phrantic09

And you can of course even skip that by buying a pre-waxed YBN chain from MSW for a few extra bucks.

bblair

That is true.

But, IMO, the official Squirt protocol is overkill and have never done that. A new, out of the box chain does not take long to clean. An old one does, so my advice is that if you are going to give wax or Squirt a try, start with a fresh chain.

Polaris OBark

I've heard similar claims about taking a leak, but I still would find it difficult to avoid in practice.

yaw

I went through two of those workshop sized bottles of Squirt and know it well. Yes it is important to really go out of your way to work it into the chain and let it dry. If done correctly it will run smooth and quiet. But the issue is that it will still produce grey gunk even if you clean off the outside of the chain, it's going to work itself to the surface and attract dust. Unless frequently attended to, it will get into the cassette, between the chain rings, into the jockey wheels, and so on.

Hot wax dries as hard as a candle, not into smeary goo. You can just vacuum hot wax flakes up from the floor, if you try that with Squirt bits that have fallen off, you'll just smear it into the floor. Squirt chains are sticky and it gets on your fingers if you handle the chain, you'll want to wash your hands. None of that with hot wax. That is a very significant difference.

Wiping down a chain externally does nothing for what's going on inside. Using those on-bike chain cleaner tools and so forth doesn't work either. Take your chain off and shake it up in some solvent and see what still comes out. Shiny chains on the outside will still grit away.

Just as immersion is required for proper cleaning, it is required for proper lubrication.

Here's a comparison of common lubes with/without contamination and chain lifespans. What people keep forgetting is that whilst some good lubes perform well (still not as well) upon initial application on a clean chain, the wear rate quickly deteriorates as contamination makes it into the chain, losing you more and more watts whilst eating up your parts. The more power you put in, the more watts, ZFC throws 2-6 Watts at 250W around, and that is just a side benefit not important to all but very important to some. It just keeps accumulating due to the superficial way people clean and relube their chains. Doing it properly would be way too much work, fortunately there is hot waxing where it's not an issue. Compare the chain lifespans. Also, simply google it and you will see that many pro athletes run waxed chains.

Eric F 

You do on my main road bike. The one thing that irritates me about my Storck is the rear-facing dropouts. I know I'm the rare exception.

sean.hwy

I have been thinking about getting an ultrasonic clean and hot pot to try this.



Where do you throw away/recycle the waste?

The auto place takes my transmission fluid and motor oil but they don't want my dirty used mineral spirits.

phrantic09

I put it in the hummingbird feeder with some red dye.

I also mow in May

Jack Tone 

Who did this test? For what it's worth. I had a Fisher mt. bike that I did many mt. bike races on, then retired it to a commuter. Did over 6.000 miles commuting with it. Original chain, and before I was a Bike Forum member and didn't know better, all I used was WD40 to lube it. The only reason I didn't have a chance to put a new chain on was that it was stolen at work. (seven speed chain if it matters)