Originally Posted by
burnthesheep
I'm open to not using the gas for the stripping.
I do time trail. Things need to be perfect. I also have a spare chain for all 3 bikes. So, it's literally 30 seconds to swap chains. If I'm doing the crazy work for the TT bike chain only, it's only like a minute or two extra work while I'm doing it to give the others the same treatment. All three chains fit in the ultrasonic cleaner.
You'll need to define "perfect". Lubrication of the chain isn't really going to have that much of an effect on your times. Sorry but it just won't. There are too many other factors to consider...weather conditions, wind direction, wind speed, your body position, etc. Course factors like a bit of sand in a corner or a pot hole or a crack will have more of an influence. Tire pressure will probably be more important...and I doubt it's all that important. Your state of mind probably has more of an impact that what is on your chain.
As for time, it's not the time it takes to swap the chain...I contend it takes a bit longer than "30 seconds"...it all of the preparation prior to the chain swap.
Originally Posted by
burnthesheep
Adding dry tube o lube on top of dry tube o lube is just adding lube/wax on top of contamination. It's probably perfectly fine for what you use it for, but internal contamination is what wears out the parts in a chain faster. It doesn't stretch, the rollers and moving parts literally wear so there are more clearances that stack up over the length of the chain to make it longer. The plates don't stretch, nothing stretches.
Just my opinion, but I'd guess chains would last longer the less contamination that gets routinely left in the thing.
I'm not ignorant of the mechanisms of chain wear. I'm also a bit more versed in materials than the average person so I know a thing or two about what the contaminants are and how they interact with the chain and how they impact chain wear. But it really doesn't matter. If a specific lubricant provide a significant increase in mileage, you might have a point. But chain lubricant doesn't seem to have that much of an effect on chain wear. There are a few outliers out there who report thousands more miles that everyone else but I take their report with a very large grain of salt. Most everyone gets about 3000 to 4000 miles out of a chain regardless of lubricant...dry lube, wax lube, oil lube or homebrew motor oil mixtures.
Dry lubricants don't hold onto contaminants so refreshing the lubricant doesn't really flush contamination into the chain. Wet chain lubricants do hold onto contaminants and move them down into the chain even without being refreshed. The mobility of oil based lubricants means that the oil serves as a pump to put the right sized and right hardness of particles exactly where there don't need to be. This means that the chain wears no matter what you do to it and no matter how many time you clean it. It
is going to wear out at a rate what most people report.
But before you (or I) go getting all superior about dry lubricants or waxes, they have their own problems. Because they are viscous and don't flow, when they get pushed out of the high(er) pressure areas of the chain, they don't flow back in to fill the void. This avoids the problem of pumping in contaminants but they are more likely to have metal to metal contact which means wear. The end result is the same mileage but for different reasons.
The choice comes down to one of constant maintenance (oil and hot wax) or little maintenance and a cleaner system (dry lubricants and solvated wax lubricants). My personal choice is for low maintenance and cleanliness. If one method was superior to the other, people would report longer wear intervals.