I wanted to share my experience with waxing my bike chains.
I was resistant to waxing my chains because it seems that a lot of people felt it was “too much work”.
But having to constantly clean black shit off my chains after every ride, then spend time degreasing and re-lubing, I figured I’d try waxing when I got my gravel bike.
Now, thousands of KM later and having converted all three bikes to waxed, there’s no way I’d go back. The time saved could be measured in hours per month.
First, the biggest complaint is chain prep. Yeah, regardless if you’re waxing or not, you’ll need to prep a new chain by removing the factory grease. With waxed, you do this once, and no more worrying about degreasing ever again. Make like easy and get Silca’s chain stripper, and it’s a 10 minute, one-step process.
Ongoing chain maintenance couldn’t be easier. After every ride, give the chain a quick wipe (or not). My chain stays clean, even after a 200 km ride.
And if you ride in wet or dirty conditions? Guess what, you’re in for a LOT of work if you lube your chain. With waxed, keep a second (or third) chain ready to go, and you just swap it out (10 seconds of effort). Take the dirty chain, give it a wipe if it’s only been wet, or pour boiled water onto it if you want to “reset” the chain to bare metal. Then drop it into the waxing pot for a re-wax. You don’t have to stand at the pot, so there’s no real time commitment here. I’ve spent more time completely dirtying large microfiber cloths trying to get my chain “clean” when lubed (hint: it’s never clean if you use a wet lube, not without solvents and an ultrasonic cleaner).
For actual immersion wax, I do it every 1000 km (sooner than you need to), and use a drip wax every 200 - 250 km to keep things fresh.
Honestly, wax is easier, cleaner, and takes less time to maintain vs wet lube.
The only downsides? The initial cost to get started. But this is offset by not having to replace chains or other components prematurely. You actually save money in the long-term when using waxed chains.
Some might argue that “you can’t run waxed chains in muddy or constantly rainy conditions”. Well, at the same time, your wet lube isn’t really helping matters in those situations, either. Waxed is still better, and you can swap chains much faster than you can clean the grinding paste from a wet lubed chain.
Who would I not recommend waxed chains to? Someone who rarely uses their bike. Drip lube will be “good enough” in those cases. But anyone else would benefit from waxing their chain.
OCD checking in here too.
To clean the chains they go in an ultrasonic cleaner with heated water to get rid of the existing wax. This makes it easy to just put all the chains in at once and let them party.
Then a second ultrasonic session with some isopropyl for a final clean and repelling the water. I have mason jars that the chains go in, so it’s really quick and repeatable. By the isopropyl step they’re already quite clean so the isopropyl lasts a really long time.
I’ve got the workflow down - and lots of place to hang chains in the bike workshop.
The same process works well for stripping new chains - just with the hot water step switched out for a mineral spirits bath. It’s just as quick but needs a space with good ventilation.
I didn’t even consider using my ultrasonic cleaner with the heater on. I’m not even sure it gets hot enough, but I may give it a try!
As for isopropyl alcohol, it’s a good second step, but I’m not even sure that it’s necessary.
Remember that technically, we can just dump an old waxed chain into more wax, and it’ll be just fine. Yes, a little contamination gets into the wax, but apparently not enough to be a problem (with as many chains as you have, I probably wouldn’t want to do that).
And the Zero Friction Cycling guy even recommends two wax pots, so your “dirty” chain goes into one, and then into the second one, reducing the contaminants in the second pot.
But, I’m almost certain that simply boiling the wax off is going to be more than good enough to get the chain clean. And I think the guys at Silca say that putting a chain into oil that’s a little wet is fine, since the water “boils off”.
In any case, if your workflow works well, and it sounds like it does, keep doing it! I’m sure I’ll modify and refine my workflow as I go (even might give the two pot method a go), but it’s already “too easy” compared to all the solvent baths I used to run my chains through.