Lombard

No, but I have to wonder if some here are being paid by Big Wax.

bbbean 

Bike stuff is expensive. I'm perfectly willing to sell out for a little cash and all the wax I can dip my chains in.

Maelochs

Shoot, i 'd even take money from Little Wax, or Tiny Wax. I 'd even take free wax.

wolfchild

People who wax their chains don't ride in winter time. All it takes is one ride in slush and on salt covered roads to mess up your clean freshly lubed chain. Cleaning and waxing a chain just isn't worth it. All I do is just wipe the chain with a rag, put few drops of oil and continue riding. When spring comes I replace the chain.

spelger

What about ear wax?

SpedFast

Wow, you may be on to something...

elcruxio

I think I have more experience about winter riding than you do. Go read my post in page six. You clearly have no idea how wax works.

base2 

Yan 

"The same amount of time."

Really, you can heat up your pot, remove the chain, dip the chain, reinstall the chain, put away your pot, all in 15 seconds?

That's incredible. Are you the comic book hero the Flash?

​​​​​​

PeteHski

I don’t think that’s what he’s saying.

elcruxio

Lift crockpot, hob and water pot on table and turn on ~ around 20 seconds because I'm slow

Treating chains after wax has melted (dip in boiling water, dip in wax, lift up to dry, hang on pegs) ~ 5 minutes if I'm efficient and not drinking a beer during all that.

Cleanup after everything has cooled ~ 20 seconds

all that time divided by 25 chains (11 bikes, the e-bike has 4 chains and others have 3) = 13.6 seconds per chain + the time it takes to swap a chain and thread the old one on a waxing hanger ~ around 2 minutes of worktime per chain to get a fresh chain on a bike.

Now to be fair, I SEVERELY doubt you can source the rag and oil, get the bike in place, oil the chain, wipe the chain to a point it no longer leaves a black streak on a white rag, cleanup and get everything back in place in 15 seconds. I mean it takes me longer than that to find and fold open my workstand not to mention put a bike on it.

Luckily for me though, I actually enjoy the chores I can do while I wait for the wax to melt. I can do minor maintenance tasks on bikes, clean the garage, drink a beer, listen to a podcast, be away from the family for a while etc.. Usually it takes me a lot longer than 2 minutes to swap a chain on a bike because typically when I swap a chain I go over the bike and see if everything's working correctly. That way I can intervene quicker to things going awry and save time + money in potential repairs.

Before waxing during the slush season i'd need to wipe a chain on every ridden bike every day or come back to a squeaking orange chain the day after that. And I'd be lubing chains every 50km or so at the worst of it. Wax lasts 200km during the worst salt slush.

msu2001la

I have no idea where 15 seconds came from, but this isn't an F1 pit stop - I've never put a stopwatch to the process. If takes a few minutes to wax a chain, it also takes a few minutes to wet lube a chain.

Waxing is not any more time consuming, in my experience.

Yan 

You people crack me up so hard lol.

Lubing a chain means left hand squirting with a bottle, right hand giving the pedal five whirls. Pick up a rag with your left hand, five more whirls. Ten whirls total.

Waxing a chain involves disassembling the chain off of your bike, and cooking over a fire like you're a chef.

And you people think this takes the SAME amount of time??? HELLO???

And to the guy with 25 chains and waxes them all at the same time: you people are claiming waxed chains are lasting three times as long as lubed chains? So what's that, 10k+ miles? So how many miles total can you get from the 25 chains? And how many miles do you ride per year? And how old are you as of today, and what is your remaining life expectancy?

This is a farce.

If you have a weird thing revolving around your hobby, fine. Lots of people have weird things. Just don't try to push it as rational instead of emotional.

PeteHski

I suppose your chain magically stays spotlessly clean with this regime.

bbbean 

I wax. I ride in the winter. I ride in the rain. I ride in mud. I ride in snow.

It is worth noting that I did all those things before I waxed as well, and whether I'm waxing or oiling, a wipedown and relube is always adviseable after getting a chain wet or dirty. Given the existence of drip wax, there is no procedural difference between oiling and waxing for a quick post-ride clean/relube.

bbbean 

I've not heard great things.

spelger

no, no, no...induction heating. c'mon man, get with the program.

tomato coupe

Even if you carefully apply one drop of lube to every link, lubing only takes about a minute. Most lubers I know aren't that fastidious, so they're done in much less than a minute.

Eric F 

Wolfy has no idea how a lot of things work, but has no shortage of opinions about those things. We have come to expect this from him.

msu2001la

OK, so waxing takes 2-3 more minutes?

What are we even talking about here?

Eric F 

One big difference I've noticed is how much less time it takes to clean my hands after working with a waxed chain vs. an oiled chain. That's a difference I can appreciate.

All this talk about how much time it takes between one process or another. Is everyone really that concerned about a few minutes?...a few seconds?? I might take to hot-dip waxing just because it takes a little longer, which means I get to hang out with my bikes more.

tomato coupe

Minutes, apparently.

elcruxio

Doesn't that sort of quick squirting procedure leave the chain oily all over and thus gunky a ssoon as you hit the road?

Connex quick links are great.

Did I claim that?

So half of the chains are mine and half are my wife's. I actually have no idea of the mileage since I've only now gotten odometers on a few of my bikes. The E-bike is less than six months old and has around 2000km so yearly kilometers are expected to be in the region of 5000km. The wife gets around 4000km of commuting miles per year with her commuter. We usually do a tour every year so that's 1000-2000km for two bikes. I used to ride recreationally 100-300km per week so there's a calculation there somewhere. The fatbike gets very little mileage, but riding time is pretty high. These days it's a bit less since currently time is a bit short (kids you know)

So if the ebike for example gets 5000km per chain it'll be four years before needing to get new ones.

I'm expecting it'll be a few years before any chains need replacing. However that's better than swapping every year with oiled chains and regular drivetrain swaps due to chains wearing without indicating it. During the slush season you need to solvent wash a chain in order to get an accurate wear indication.

It's almost as if you assume I just started waxing without having had done any maintenance on any of our bikes prior to that.

You also gloss over the absolute cleanliness of wax. If the only advantage was not having to wash off black grease marks off my kids, I'd still go for wax. But my clothes also stay cleaner and I don't have to worry about getting black marks inside our car. Shifting is also better than with any oil I've tried.

You certainly have very strong opinions but seemingly little experience.

See the above.

Yan 

No, my chain is not "clean", just like the underside of my car, the bottom of my shoes, and the sewage pipe of my toilet are not "clean". There are some devices in the world that are not meant to be operated "clean". These devices can be kept operational with the correct maintenance, even if their operating environment is not "clean".


What this chain waxing reminds me of are those old ladies who wash the four paws of their dogs in a little bowl of soapy water every time they come home from a walk. Yes, they exist, we all know a grandma like this.

Now if you told this to the general population, they'd think you're a freaking nutter. But I bet on www.dogforums.net, there are fierce threads debating the benefits of washing your dog's feet before coming indoors. Why, you don't know how dirty dog feet are and how much poop they step in? What if they get your carpet dirty? Washing dog feet is being CLEAN.

I installed my current chain (11 speed, about $30) at the beginning of June. In the last 3 months (today is Sep 13) I've ridden 4300 miles (7000 km), according to my bike computer which I keep on my bike for all rides. My chain is currently at 0.4% wear. I change my chains at 0.5% wear, so my chain is 80% through its lifespan. Do you know how much of my life I have wasted on keeping my drivetrain "clean" during this 4300 miles? Grand total of maybe 5 minutes. Yep, just the old squirt-and-wipe whenever I remember. Now if I was waxing my chain every 350km, I would have had to do immersion waxing a whopping TWENTY times. Even if I had two chains to rotate and save time, that's "cooking dinner" TEN TIMES.

Yeah, no.

Maelochs

So many people attacking or defending two perfectly valid options for chain maintenance ... if people put this kind of care into something substantive, we could have world peace, end hunger and disease, end homelessness .... and after all that, re-start the fight over chain lube.