Arthur Peabody

I use the flimsiest paper towels, the ones that are just paper, then pitch them in the kitchen sink and grind them to a slurry with the garbage disposal. The heavy-duty paper towels have sturdy fibers that resist decomposing or, worse, plastic (like those baby wipes). Mine turn into compost in the city's sewage treatment plant. Socks and cloths (etc.) end up in a land fill for decades.

djb

I still find rags to be the best for chain and general drivetrain cleaning, being able to get into crannies and them not ripping or whatever , not to mention cassette flossing, still seems to me to be the best thing to use.

I do the old t shirt or whatever holey clothes I have that will be thrown out anyway.

WizardOfBoz

A Campy Cat!

jadocs

Old t-shirts

rpking

I use disposable surgical gloves, just don't grip to tight or they rip

cyccommute 

Here, kitty, kitty!

You could use paper towels and baby wipes but that’s worse then using a household rag. My rags are old t-shirts that I cut up. I can use one piece of a t-shirt (say a foot square) for up to 100 uses. I can only use a paper towel or baby wipe for a single use. Even if I had to buy new t-shirts, it would be more economical to use the t-shirts. Heck, you might even get remnants at a fabric store and be ahead of paper towels.

Additionally, paper towels don’t stand up to much abuse. They quickly become lint if you try to scrub too much with them.

Finally, at the risk of this devolving into a chain lube flame war, don’t use a chain lube that requires constant wiping. Part of the reason that my rags last so long is that I don’t use them for wiping chains. I don’t have to. I use a wax based lubricant that isn’t messy. I don’t even need to wipe the chain after application. As an added benefit, I can use my cats for other things...they make pretty good Swiffers.

adipe

biodegradable worn out socks, biodegradable worn out t-shirts... toilet paper etc. if worn out cotton is not near.

it's best to take the chains off the bike to clean them properly with the least mess going on places on and around the bike and discarding the least mess.
i recycle baths and only dispose of sticky goo after the solvent is somehow filtered from the goo.

you might take the wax treatment way, the only difficulty is getting the right ingredients and learning how easy taking a powerlink off is.
there's nothing like a proper hot wax bath for a chain.

it's best to wash with an alcohol mix first and finish with naphtha/xylene. a very useful thing is to know that this last solvent needs time to evaporate so you could have more than one chain cleaned up and lubed in order to spend less time and also have a good to go chain anytime you need one on the bike. i never like water as a cleaning agent but rather use alcohol first so it can dry up fast but i don't wait for alcohol to dry up because chains are vulnerable to corrosion. i clean chains in very short time so that the final lube gets in as fast as possible.

let the lube dry out with the chain relaxed and only fit it on the bike after the lube had time to set in the chain so that it does not pour to easily.
bike chains lube need to be sticky because there are large loads, extreme pressure on them. it is because of this that wax works so well in preventing wear and rust so well.

cyccommute 

Skip the alcohol. It does nothing in cleaning a chain. Alcohol is far to polar to dissolve even small amount of any lubricant that is used to lube a chain. All you need is the naphtha (aka mineral spirits). You could even skip the xylene as it not all that good for your health.

A caveat, however: If a water based degreaser is used, alcohol is useful after the degreaser has been rinsed off with water. The alcohol will remove the water more quickly but it will also insure that the water doesn’t sit under the nonpolar but less dense lubricants you put back on the chain.

Bike chains aren’t under any particularly large load nor are they subjected to extreme pressure. The load on the chain is equivalent to the weight and power output of the rider. That’s not much. Other chain driven vehicle are subjected to far more load on a similarly sized chain. They do need a different lubrication but they have mechanisms for that.

adipe

first thing to be said: not ordinary wax but the microcrystalline kind is best used.
there's no much need to disolve the wax as it flakes off with dirt. just wash the goo with an alcohol mix what has adhered not to wax but to the metal.
have the alcohol evaporate as fast as possible and do not delay. by cooking the chain the alcohol will go easily.

i avoid using water at all but you are right to say that alcohol can be used after water. but an alcohol mix is quite cheap so that's why i avoid water altogether.
i clean polar stuff first so that the alcohol does not take out too much of the base that is underneath the dirt.

the second bath is only needed if the nonpolar grease has absorbed dirt but it's not the case with wax.
i tend to cook the chain in the same wax over and over again so that any debris not washed off prior to the cooking falls off at almost the boiling temperature of the water that surrounds the jar with the chain.

my method of cooking the chain is quite safe: leave it in a closed lid jar inside a pot with water that is slowly heated. i can cook more than one chain this way and i do it with a timer to remind me go take the jar off. i have a lid over the pot to not have too much heat wasted and water vapour go about.

therefore a nonpolar degreaser is not needed very often. put the anticorrosive nonpolar lube immediately after cleaning with the nonpolar solvent if there are no anticorrosive additives in the solvent to protect the chain until properly lubed.

i tend to apply a different layer that is amphiphilic on top of the wax layer underneath. that's why i would suggest cleaning that way as well, in that order.
the alcohol mix could contain isopropyl (disolves nonpolar as well) so YMMV.

...
have you figured out the area where the load is and the square milimeters? have you figured out the force on that area? i'd rather say the pressure is quite high and that is why a solid lubricant should be there. wax is best. avoid graphite or molybdenum disulfide as they promote corrosion in one way or another. and teflon does not stay there, it will not adhere like wax does.

if you drink the cool aid you will use the lubes that do not prevent chain wear really well. the friction coefficient will not stay low when using things that flow away from where extreme pressure/load is.

there are quite extreme pressures and the light lubes people use are just carriers for anticorrosive and antiwear additives that are squashed too easily away from the load area.
https://www.myodesie.com/images/wiki...Chain_edit.JPG

say there is a 70kg load pressing on the pedal with a 48t chainring (97mm radius, there are also smaller ones people use usually):
70*9.8*175/97=1237Newtons.
how many square milimeters are there between the pin and the chain plates? mind that you have to divide height of the pins by about 1.57 as it's a circle shape so that the normal force is less and less so that not all contact surface has an equal contribution to the load.

so... divide 1237Newtons by said square milimeters on the chain plates that have been divided by the 1.57 factor and you have the pressure in MPa. any light oil film is easily squashed away.
the pin diameter is 3.57, what is the plate width? could it be just 1mm?
keep in mind that the chain can be deflected so the pressure on those plates and on the pins is quite high. hundreds of MPa.

cyccommute 

There is nothing to remove with the alcohol. It’s just a wasted step. Anything that is stuck to the wax will come off with the non-polar solvent. The non-polar solvent will do all the work so why add steps?

First, isopropyl alcohol isn’t particularly nonpolar. It is missable in water in all proportions like ethanol is.

More importantly, there’s no need to make chain lubrication overly complicated. More steps doesn’t equate with more chain longevity. There is no secret sauce or secret steps that will result in more than just a few hundred miles difference in chain wear. Chains seem to last 3500 to 4000 miles, no matter what you do for lubrication. Why make it harder?

I said compared to other chain driven vehicles. A motorcycle, for example, has much higher horse power and puts much greater demand on the chain. Bicycle chains undergo light duty and really don’t put that much demand on the chain. Plus they are cheap enough that it’s just not worth a lot of bother to extend their lives for a few miles.

shelbyfv

This thread has become derailed. Or maybe deranged....

Jeff Wills

^^^ Home, home of deranged...

djb

or as they say in French, "dechainé", or dechained, as in the chain falling off.....

Racing Dan

Possibly there is some truth to it. MC chains (even non o-ring) tend to last a lot longer than bike chains. That is an indication bike chains are of relatively* lighter dimension than a MC chain. Its even worse riding a strong center motor e-bike. Finish line has an e-bike lube that contains moly to combat increased wear from the high torque motors. No accounting for the black mess, Im sure adding moly to the lube is beneficial and not only marketing wank.

*relative to the applied forces.

adipe

the alternative to using rags is using wax baths so that you don't need to clean that often as dirt can fall off the chain but wax will also get flaked off too.
you should be able to wash rags.

so, if you want to have the wax on the chain resist better in time you can add a second layer of sticky stuff that might be washed by an alcohol mix.
the thing i use now has both lanolin and silicone oil in it (the second layer). i had no luck finding something that had no silicone oil in it.

i like to add a third ingredient as the last touch when finishing the work with the chain: talcum powder. anticorrosive, antibacterial, prevents mess sticking to whatever has stickiness on the chain, it is a solid and clean lubricant.

isopropyl alcohol is a good solvent for both non polar and polar stuff.
and silicone oil is best washed with it.

that's why i said it might be a good idea to start with alcohol as it with wash nonpolar stuff away without taking much of the harder wax inside the chain.
you can use water to clean dirt before using alcohol but i would skip it as i don't like the idea of introducing water before alcohol.
but if someone chooses to use water it has to be dried out as completely and fast as possible.

there are some car wash stuff intended to be added to water for cleaning the car and also have anticorrosive ingredients. in general you should use gloves when using that. i found out they contain some biocides - the purpose is to inhibit bacterial degradation of the waxy layer left after washing with it. bacteria degrade paraffin so you don't want it readily biodegradable when in use. and you also don't want the probiotics that benefit your skin killed by that stuff.

take notice that the nice wax to use is the microcrstalline kind (isoparaffins) as it better stays put and doesn't flake off as easily as ordinary paraffin.

this thread is not derailed off the chain

adipe

motorcycle chains work on precisely aligned sprockets (no deflection), there is considerable speed (large cog), the chains that have o-rings have lubricant inside that need to transfer the heat from the working surface inside. the lubricant inside is very viscous so the chain is heated by the speed and the load. the sprocket on the motorcycle is very large, much larger than the cog on the wheel of the bike.

the chain is wider, larger as a whole, more surface to bear the load. motorcycle chains can last tens of thousands of miles.

but bike chains do not heat up as there is many times less power transferred through the chain. there is no need for the same kind of lubricant. solid lubricants are not suitable to transfer heat so they can work very well.

and the pressure where the load surface is not that large as people would imagine for a motorcycle's chain if the area is larger, the chain speed is high, the cogs are precisely aligned... because torque is not transferred in pulses as like when a rider stomps on the pedals. the motorcycle transfers torque like a rider that stomps when accelerating with all body weight on the pedal.

bike chains benefit from lubricants that are more alike to the stuff that's best on the threads of bolts: waxy stuff.
rain can be an issue so it's best to keep the spray of wet dirt away from the chain by using fenders but that's another issue.

people are obsessed with lightweight bikes. marketing. often enough the geometry prevents having proper fenders - the worst thing is when the foot not being able to clear the front fender when in turns.
if you want a bike that's more easy to take care you eventually lighten up your mind, spend less total time for the distance and for taking care of the bike, ride safer on the roads.

less rags needed. discard the dress rehearsal rags.
or be a mamil if you like being so. to each his own.

adipe

avoid moly. it's known for the nasty galvanic corrosion. wax is better. moly is ok for other uses, not for chains.

"The antifriction molybdenum disulfide coatings used at friction points may heighten atmospheric, electrochemical corrosion of the metal owing to intensification of the anode and cathode reactions, with a decrease in the ohmic and polarization resistances of the films. The use of such coatings may be recommended under conditions in which atmospheric corrosion is excluded."
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00727803

Racing Dan

Im nor aware moly "fortified" lubricants are prone to cause corrosion or any other such issues.

cyccommute 

What is the benefit of this "second layer of sticky stuff". The whole point of wax is to not have a sticky surface that dirt can, well, stick to. Further what is the benefit of the third layer? Antibacterial? I'm not particularly worried about developing colonies of bacterial on my chain because I'm not particular worried about contracting a disease from handling my chain. There are some bacterial that can live on petroleum based products but they are few and not widely distributed nor are they a hazard for humans or even other organisms.


Again, no, it is not. And it's not particularly good at removing silicone oil, at least not according to this chart. Although not listed directly, one can infer from the information that if silicone oils are only partially soluble in n-butanol, it's less soluble in 2-propanol (aka isopropyl alcohol). It's an unnecessary step.




There not much in the way of nonpolar material on a chain unless you put it there. Most people wax and leave it at that. Wax isn't touched by 2-propanol so washing with alcohol is a useless step.

That said, there are some times when water would be appropriate. Winter riding means encountering salts use to de-ice roads. 2-propanol isn't going to touch that. Only water is. An alcohol wash could be appropriate after water washing to remove salt but if for most any lubricant, the salt is only going to be on the surface and a deep clean might not be needed.

adipe

i said i would use a mix of alcohols as it's cheap and work alright and in general i won't use water except for salts thrown in winter which are to be avoided for many other reasons beside the chain being vulnerable to it. use mudguards. using water is as a first step before an alcohol mix is cheaper but alcohols mix are cheap enough for me.

using a second layer prevents the wax flaking off as it's not elastic enough if the chain deflects. having only wax is alright for a singlespeed use, with perfectly aligned chainring and cog.
if there is wax where extreme pressure is - between the pin and the plate - and there's some goo where chain wear is not an issue it can work very well.

the second layer is washed sooner or later by the alcohol mix so that the wax bath is done less often. taking the chain off the bike can be more inconvenient when having derailleurs etc.

bacteria degrade wax, research this fact. wax is biodegradable. you may consider that it matters less but i thought to point it out in principle as being one of the ways talcum powder is of benefit. like when having each gram add up on the bike, so are with the reasons for me using the talcum powder. all these small things add up to have me take the extra step.
the talcum powder achieves not only this one small aspect. it prevents other stuff sticking to the second layer, it is a solid lubricant, it is anticorrosive. it ensures having a clean chain on the outside.

if you use only wax it flakes off in time so if you don't mind having frequent baths you can ignore the other layer(s). the talcum powder layer is needed if an elastic and also sticky layer is put on top of the wax that's needed where you can't see - where the pins wear in time.

"Ethanol is widely used as a solvent. It is relatively safe, and can be used to dissolve many organic compounds which are insoluble in water."

i don't want to talk too much about the alcohol mix as being of use right before the other steps in cleaning the chain. i won't say it has to be done, i was just saying that you could do it if you have the thing available as it can be quite cheap. i prefer to avoid water although some people will use it. i don't like having that extra step unless the chain is ridden in mud etc. not my case. but having the alcohol not removing the wax is a good thing because i don't like degreasing completely to have the pins/plate interface vulnerable to rust before putting back the lube. my take is to wash wax with wax as to cook the chain leaving it in a wax bath so that the wax that was flaked off is replenished. some people don't wash chains at all, they just clean it with dry/damp rags before adding more lube and using the extra lube (that might contain some solvent) as a carrier to take the mess away from the chain. this is convenient but uses more rags as it is a more frequent job to do in quick time.

and i don't really recommend silicone oil, i just happen to have it as an ingredient in the stuff that i bought for the purpose of having lanolin as an extra layer. lanolin is more elastic than wax so it is of use for the chain to keep the wax from flaking off and other reasons as well. i did not bother to search for lanolin containing products with a low price, i just thought that the silicone oil is not too much of a trouble and the product i bought was cheap enough.

this whole thing is about rags which can be plenty if cleaning the chain occurs less frequently. that's why i pointing out the extra steps i do and thought to explain why i do them.
the alternative to rags being insufficient could be a less frequent cleaning of the chain by using microcystalline wax and topping it with lanolin.

shelbyfv

Mascara brush works OK for chunks between the cogs.

J.Higgins 

I keep a couple big plastic totes full of all the old discarded cotton clothing and towels, etc, that our family/s generate. My shop has become the place where old clothing goes to die. I usually tear a T-shirt into fourths, and cut 12" squares out of old towels. Like Stu said, I can get a whole lot of uses out of a real cloth rag. Right now, paper towels have a place for when our new puppy, Polly, makes a booboo. If I use a rag for flammable solvents, it goes outside on the dirt to dry out.

Most of the time, I can use a rag in stages. First stage will be to wipe and polish. Second stage will be to clean oily messes, such as WD-40 that I've sprayed into a crusty old derailleur to loosen it up. Lastly, the rag will get used for wiping up a nasty glob of hardened grease or something out of a pathetic old BB, or maybe a first wipe of my hand after packing my grease gun. Its trashed after that.

djb

nearly exactly the lifespan of our old clothes also, and pretty much the same usage cycle. Just makes sense to use them and to use them in order of getting dirtier and dirtier. I imagine most home mechanics who work on bikes do just this.
When I winter commute, I use the grossest dirtiest greasiest ones on my bike after I do the super quick soap and water washdown after a ride. I figure a bit more old grease on the bike or cables cant hurt, in fact it probably helps!

J.Higgins 

I tell you, DJ, I'm rapidly becoming a fully vetted member of the Fluid Film cult. I use that stuff on everything, especially old tired paint. This winter I will be using it to protect the mechs on my bike and the paint! Look at it this way - a bike that's treated with Fluid Film is definitely better off when facing the salty-sloppy stuff we got up here, right?

djb

interesting, never heard of the stuff. Generally, I use a big car brush attachment thingee that is supposed to go on a hose, soft bristles, I just wash with soap and water all over very fast, then dry down water with an old rag, wipe rims quickly, then spray wd40 on chain and a bit under frame at cables near bb, derailleurs a bit too. Fast and not very pretty, but it works at keeping rust at bay and has worked the last few winters at keeping my old mtb in fairly good shape.
Having a garage that gives me space to do a messy quick cleaning is a big help, and keeps me doing it after every winter ride, unless its been very dry, then I just do a quick under wipe and chain spray.