yaw

It's what happens when you only see parts and not the big picture.

Polaris OBark

Step 1: Melt wax.
Step 2: Immerse chain. (Optional: wipe it down with a paper towel first)
Step 3: Swirl it around and let equilibrate to the temperature of the melted wax.
Step 4: Pull it out and hang it on a nail and let it drip and cool.
Step 5: Put it on the bike.

big john

Here are a few dozen more threads.
Bike Forums - Search Results

Kapusta

Sorry, I was mistaken.

I would not even make it past the first step before it took more time than lubing my chain.

Kapusta

Oh, so enough steps that all take longer, and eventually it would take shorter?

OK.

Look it you wan to wax, go for it. Just explaining why it is not more popular.

Polaris OBark

I wonder what the chain waxing recumbent Venn diagram evangelism overlap looks like...

seypat

Each person's going to have a different opinion on what is easier. works better, more convenient, etc, etc. Also, don't discount the fact that a lot of riders might think of lubing their chain as a type of pre game ritual similar to airing up one's tires.

yaw

Provided you care to maintain a reasonably efficient drivetrain, you will spend more time on cleaning it alone than a hot waxer spends waxing and swapping chains.

Kapusta

No, I don’t. I use pro link and seldom need to clean my chain. Maybe one or twice, in some cases never in the life of the chain.

And when I do, it about the same amount or work as a waxing. Throw it in some mineral spirits (which I don’t need to melt) soak, wipe off, let dry, re-lube.

My drivetrain is not sparkling clean looking, but it is not very dirty, either. If a sparking clean looking drivetrain is worth the extra work to you, have at. I’d rather spend my time on other things.

seypat

Let's talk about the lubing methods a little deeper. We could compare it to the options cyclists have when they want to remove body hair. They have the longer lasting products/processes such as Nair, Nads or Lazer removal. Like chain waxing, those products might do a better job and require a lot less overall time/maintenance. Then we have ordinary shaving which is similar to ordinary chain lubing. Definitely requires more maintenance than the other methods and doesn't last as long. You'd think shaving would be the least popular method, but that's not the case. I wonder why?

flangehead

This method has a 100% participation rate within 50’ of my garage.

I see no reason to degrease a new chain. The small amount of emulsifiers disperse in a much larger quantity of wax.

Broctoon

False, for me, at least. I tried waxing a chain once or twice. It involved removing the chain from my bike, finding a pan and putting it on the stove to melt the wax, submersing the chain and letting it penetrate, fishing it back out and letting it cool, then reinstalling it on the bike. Am I doing it wrong? My favorite drip lube, Boeshield T9, takes me less than five minutes to apply. (Much less when I'm not being picky about it.) There is very little mess, and my drivetrains work fine. I like the idea of waxing, but I don't see how I could possibly do it with anything comparable to the ease of a drip bottle. By the time I get to step 2 out of 5 for waxing, I could have been done with the T9.

Kapusta

Whats the hardest thing about being a chain waxer who goes to Cross-Fit?

Deciding what to tell everybody about first.

seypat

You've also got to get yourself a cooker/ingredients and deal with the prep/maintenance both pre and post waxing. That's a lot different than bottles of brake cleaner/lube and some paper towels. Not to mention removing the chain and keeping a spare quick link close by.

seypat

Add vegan to that list.

Broctoon

And 'bent riders, sometimes.

big john

I wipe my chains with a rag. Takes a few seconds. I'm not big on maintenance, don't really care as long as it still works. I replace the drivetrain parts when they get trashed. Doing it that way for almost 40 years.

Polaris OBark

I have a mini crock pot. The only ingredient you need is paraffin. There is no prep/maintenance pre/post waxing. That's the beauty of it.

Sure, it is easier to put tri-flow or whatever on your chain. It is the mess and labor after 300 miles where this pays off. Also, my drive train lasts years rather than months now, under the gritty sandy conditions where I ride. The chain cleaner sits unused. I don't even have to use one of those brushes to clean the cassette. Even my derailleur pullys are pristine. No greasy hands when I change a chain. No chain tattoos. No sand/lube grinding paste chewing on all the cassette and chainring teeth.

I have a friend who I ride with whose white carbon Trek Domane has a brownish chain-stay from all the crap he dumps all over his chain, and there are globs of filth that accumulate in his cassette and derailleur. That's just nasty.

Of course everyone should do as they see fit. If I lived where it rains all the time, I might not want to wax my chain. But it does a disservice to tell people it is prohibitively time-consuming, or that you need to put in toxic ingredients like teflon powder or molybdenum sulfide or whatever the magic ingredient of the day might be. Pure paraffin, aka canning wax, is all you need to do this.

yaw

One way to speed this up, and make it much safer, is using a crockpot or similar which you can set on 'low' and be guaranteed that it won't overheat the wax. You can just turn it on with the wax already inside and put the chain(s) on top before it even melted. You can walk away and at some point later just agitate and fish the chain(s) out when convenient and hang them to dry, ideally directly over the pot. So you don't actually have to watch any of the heating up or keep time. If you do 2-3 chains at once, you have nearly a thousand km of dry weather riding covered and all you need to do is swap the chains out via the quick link when they become due and re-wax the old chains when convenient.

In actual 'attendance time' I would say that I can wax a couple of chains, dry them, break them, store them, within the 5 minutes you do your Boeshield T9. Sure more time passes as these things soak and dry, but when it comes to ride readiness, it will take just a minute to swap an old chain with a pre-waxed one in-between batch waxing.

yaw

The point is your drivetrain parts wouldn't get trashed as quickly on hot wax. Your friction losses would be reduced throughout your riding. So you have 40 years of accelerated part trashing and living with a less efficient drivetrain but that is not a reason to avoid an improvement if it is practical for you. Even with a money no object replace what come approach, the task to source and fit new parts, or trip to the bike shop, eats into time.

zandoval 

OK... Ok... ok... !!!

I'll give it a try...

seypat

So you just turn the crock pot off and leave the wax in to harden back up? You don't clean or wipe the chain down before it's dipped in wax?

Polaris OBark

OK, now back to Rene Herse tires...

seypat

It works for him, so no reason for him to change.

Polaris OBark

Exactly. The chain doesn't get dirty. I guess it can't hurt to run it through a rag or paper towel, but I've never seen any dirt or residue come off, so I don't bother. The wax eventually gets kind of grey, so I just dump it into the trash and stick a new block in.

Lifetime supply of chain lube (sorry about the fuzzy photo):


Mini crockpot with solid wax waiting for the next chain waxing event: