Enlighten me! How much snow do you get where you live? Average annual snowfall in Pennsylvania is 39". Most years we get a third of that in a day.

If one would listen to this Silca Josh guy one would cycle 1000km a year and spend 15.000h looking after bike parts. ;()) no thanks.

chainrings, the cassette and jockey wheels will be clean, always ....

All this snow talk really doesn't apply to general use, ie touring use that is the topic here.
Rain seems to me to be the main issue I'm thinking about with all this interesting discussion.

I used a petroleum oil based lube until about 2016, switched to a wax based lube at that time.

When touring, I use Finish Line Ceramic Dry. That is a wax based lube.

Near home, use some form of wax lube that I think was made by Pedros. It was in a pressurized can, and the propellant all leaked out. Instead of throwing that can away, I opened up the can and drained it all into a squeeze bottle. So, I no longer have a label to refer to. All I can say is that I am still using that near home for most of the past decade.

Both of these lubes leave a dry drive train that is not a dust magnet.

A couple weeks ago I wiped off the chain on two of my bikes. I put on a medical glove to keep hand clean, saturate a paper towel with kerosene, and wipe off the chain with that to get most of the grime off of it. I do not soak the chain in any solvent, only use that kerosene wipe on a paper towel so that it only wipes off the outer part of the chain and on the roller surfaces. Thus, the pins and wear surfaces of the plates did not get any solvent on them so the lube on those internal parts remains. Will add lube before I ride anywhere, mainly for the rollers, but probably will not have either of those two bikes out until next year. Had a heavy snowfall yesterday and last night.

Some years in the past I put studded tires on my heavy touring bike and rode it a little bit in winter, but over time that is less enjoyable than it used to be. So, my biking for the next three or four months will probably be all on an exercise bike at the gym. Or I might put the studded tires on my errand bike, an old steel frame mountain bike.

There is so much horse crap being spread by the makers and sellers of wax products that I’m surprised they don’t have to be followed around by a cart with a broom and shovel.



Where do they get their ideas? First, why remove wax with water? Why introduce water into the equation? Hot wax is a nice solvent for cold wax. It just melts. No need for washing the wax off with hot water because hot water doesn’t actually wash off wax. If the wet chain is then dropped into a hot wax, the water doesn’t move off into the wax either. It becomes encapsulated against the metal and just sits there, corroding the metal underneath. There are many bizarre and dumb cleaning methods that have little rhyme or reason for existing.

Below is a post from another discussion which was about oil but it also applies to wax and the effect of water on that wax.

Bottom line, hot wax itself is sufficient for removing cold wax.

A subject that never wanes.

Not bad, not bad

I plan on using one spare + drip wax when on less than 6 weeks tour.

But Silca sells wax pellets in bags that are intended to be used in a bain-marie. Would be easy to carry on tour and cook chain soup from time to time.

Can I ask what a “Bain-Marie” is?

Essentially a double boiler, although it can be something like the water bath used to cook custards and flans

Ya, I think I am going to try the product that cycco recommends, White Lightening Clean Ride.
I like the idea of easy application.
I've used really thin chain lubes in the past and they are so easy and fast to apply, and as you say, everything stays clean, so not a big deal even if they need to be put on a bit more often.

Put the bag in a pot filled with water. Heat the pot -- the water will eventually boil and heat the bag content without going over 100C (212F), i.e. no risk of melting the plastic bag, but how enough to melt the wax.

This reminds me of the boil in a bag meals you could buy in the 1970s, not a good memory. Put the bag in hot or boiling water to heat up your meal. When it is heated up, pour your bag into your bowl or mug. That was the theory.

We bought some of those meals for a five day winter camping trip, hiked in out in the middle of nowhere on our snowshoes. We figured we could melt snow for our water source, heat up the meals in the bags, and once the food was hot, after we took the meals out of the water we would add snow to cool the water and have the water to fill our water bottles. But the bags leaked, thus the water was contaminated with food, not the best water source for filling our water bottles. And of course water got into the bags to make a runny meal too. Good in theory, but in practice, not so much.

I tried White Lightning 15 years ago. It was so bad I never finished the bottle... which I probably still have around somewhere.

Apply in the morning, squeaky by the afternoon. Sorry but I'm not going to use a lube that I have to apply twice in one ride. What, I have to carry the bottle with me on my day rides?

Hopefully they've improved the formulation since then.

For those waxing their chains on tour, you must have a lot more time and energy than I, as often I'm so tired by the time I roll into camp, I have barely enough energy to put my tent up, cook a meal and attend to my dirty water bottles. More power to you waxers

you said it, spot on.
I can see that any system that is faster and cleaner would be nicer in this regard, less time spent on drivetrain maintenance.
If the liquid suspension type wax lube is as clean as it seems, to me this seems like the best method.
Easy , fast and clean to apply (after riding in rain, after X days of riding) and a lot less clean up on cassette, chainrings and jockey wheels.

I can really see the advantage of a wax type thing on more off road trips, especially with rain involved, because this is where it really gets things messy.

Noise?
ie a noisy chain
To what extent would it bug you?
Not really definable on paper is it?

Like Yan mentioned a few posts ago, years ago I used a super thin chain lube, still have a bit of it, and had the same experience as Yan.
The noise of the chain bugged me after not a lot of riding, so basically had to apply it almost every day commuting.
Super clean mind you, so easy application and no excess to collect junk, but like a noisy hub or any other bike noise, I really didnt like the chain noise.

So my question to Cycco or STR, is this a factor ?
Maybe you aren't bothered by a chain sound that would bug me?

my tool is ultra silent. Onyx Vesper (love it!) hub no sound at all. Waxed chain no noise too … for now. See my post #65 here, since then I still did not cycle, touching the chain I can feel that there Is still a coat of wax on it. And I had a heavy rain day post #26. This coming weekend will be a long one, 5 days cycling, I will not touch the chain. Let’s see how the it behaves.

P.S. I was laughing a lot about friends who are waxing their chains for a longer time. you guys believe in vooodooooo, is the Silca guy your guru!? and other jokes....
I am happy and impressed by the result.

There really is no difference between hot wax, solvent wax, and water suspension wax. They are all wax and will all perform pretty much the same way. Each has some limitations in application, however. Hot wax needs a way to make it hot…not the most convenient thing to do at a campsite…and a lot of paraphernalia to do it. It takes time as well.

Water suspension waxes have the problem of long dry times and are likely longer in humid conditions. Applying it the night before would be best so that it can dry. And, as I pointed out above, if you have something to make the wax compatible with water, once it is reexposed to water, there is nothing keeping it from resuspending. The wax would wash off.

Solvent wax is in a solvent. That wigs out some people and can be problematic if someone in authority decides that a little bit of solvent is worse than entire gas tanks full of a similar solvent. But it is easy to apply and dries quickly.

Just finished a ride with a chain that has been 490+ miles since my last application of White Lightning. I could hear the tires on the bike (slightly knobby Gravel Kings) but not a sound out of the chain. Shifts are as crisp as ever. I’ve been using White Lightning since the late 90s and I may be used to the noise that it makes but there is nothing noticeable that I can hear. No squeaks, no rattling, no sounds over what is normal.

And why does my chain accumulate dirt with for example "Squirt" liquid wax?

I believe the "They are all wax and will all perform pretty much the same way." is commenting on the lubrication properties of wax. Doesn't matter how the wax gets into the pivots, as long as it gets in there. Yes, Squirt does collect dust, especially it put on thick and not wiped down before use.

Squirt’s SDS says that it contains ethylene glycol and a substance called mopholine. Ethylene glycol is more commonly known as “anti-freeze”. Mopholine is a polar (i.e. water) soluble but also nonpolar soluble substance which is what makes the wax suspendable. It’s also hygroscopic which means it pulls water out of the air. Ethylene glycol is also hygroscopic. Neither material will evaporate due to their chemical properties so they stick around on the chain and in the wax, pulling water out of thin air. That would make them naturally sticky. The wax wouldn’t be affected and, likely, no dirt is really being pulled into the chain because the wax doesn’t flow like oil does. It’s mostly a surface effect.

Even when you add more wax in the course of use, the wax will entrain dirt and grit but it’s not going to act like an oil will. The grit will be encapsulated and held in suspension in the solid wax. There well be some contact but not to the level that grit can contact the chain.

Kinda..with regard to the lubrication properties. But the material is also chemically the same, whether it is hot wax, solvent wax, or emulsion wax. Hot wax can be as simple as just food grade wax or as complicated as whatever woo juice Silca (and its like) are selling at exorbitant prices. Solvent wax tends to be wax dissolved in something that it can be dissolved in, most likely mineral spirits. It can have some modifiers like PTFE but, for the most part, it is akin to food grade wax. Emulsion waxes have other materials in them to get the wax to go into water which it will not do under most conditions.

Squirt’s SDS says that it contains ethylene glycol and a substance called mopholine. Ethylene glycol is more commonly known as “anti-freeze”. Mopholine is a polar (i.e. water) soluble but also nonpolar soluble substance which is what makes the wax suspendable. It’s also hygroscopic which means it pulls water out of the air. Ethylene glycol is also hygroscopic

Thank you for an explanation anyone can understand Do you teach chemistry or something?

danke for the response.
Like cycco does, I see just using a solvent based liquid wax lube to "top up" the chain while on a trip would be easy to do, while still having a quite clean drivetrain.