Chain Lube

[pdm]

Can you clue me in...I tried waxing (with paraffin wax) this year and couldn't get it to work. Liked the cleanliness, but suffered from a lot of chain noise, a waxed chain would barely make it to 100km before it became intolerable. Used a thermometer to ensure adequate temps were reached, so it's not that.

Not sure what I can add...
I use a crock pot. Temperature reaches around 90-95C or so. Soak the chain for 3 hours at that temperature.
No excess noise, definitely no squeaking. Wax lasts me ~5-600km outside; 1000km inside.
Perhaps I'm just deaf to it all? I do wear hearing aids... 

[Phil21]

I don't know either :-( My experience was so contrary to what I have seen posted on t'interweb. I was using KMC chains which supposedly have worse wax retention, but since I have 4 of them (bought ages ago when they were on sale) I couldn't be arsed to try another brand yet.

[Kim]

Perhaps I'm just deaf to it all? I do wear hearing aids... 

This is certainly a thing.  I've ridden with older riders who are oblivious to the noise their chain is making.

I've also had rubbing disc brake noises pointed out that I couldn't hear.

(Barakta of course can't make any sense of mechanical noises.  I have to tell her when her front mech is rubbing.)

[freeflow]

I'm a convert to hot wax ubes as well.  Due to a bike theft I switched to a bike with gears in a can last August (2020) so I now have a single speed chainline and use KMC e1 chains (even though my bike isn't an e-bike).  I've used two of these chains in rotation and over the last year covered 6300km on the bike.  I use a Park Tools cc-2 chain checker


https://www.parktool.com/product/chain-checker-cc-2

I still can't get the prongs of the checker between the links of the chain so effectively no discernible wear at this point. 

I tend to rewax after 200-300km as this is a convenient schedule for me, but have on a couple of occasions done over 400km.  The drive train is wonderfully quite.

I too use a small crockpot.  Chains are wiped clean with a couple of paper towels and then dunked for 15-30 minutes.  I then hang the chains over the hot wax to drain off excess wax.  I started with molten speed wax, but then added an equivalent amount of a wax with tungsten disulphide and ptfe from ebay.

I do get some flakes of wax on the chainstays but this is very easy to wipe off.  Otherwise the regime is very easy to manage.

Previously I was using 10 speed chains, typically sram 1051, and lubing with purple extreme.  Despite intensive and laborious cleaning and relubing of the chains I never got more than 1200km from a chain, even using a set of 5 chains that were carefully rotated.  Prior to using a rotating set, chains would be pretty worn by the time I got to 800  km.

I'm happy to hold my hands up and acknowledge that I don't ride for extended period in the rain, but due to local flooding, my chains have at least been submerged on more than one occasion with no apparent ill effect.

[Hot Flatus]

SRAM chains are shit. But they are £8.

[Frank9755]

SRAM chains are shit. But they are £8.

Where?

[Hot Flatus]

Periodically at PX

I had one snap last month. Link sheared, so not installation error

[SweatRash]

There was an IMechE webinar a couple of days ago by a proper tribologist who used to work for Muc-Off on bicycle chain lubrication.
Did anyone make it who could give the forum a précis? Maybe a video of it will appear, so keep your eyes peeled.
https://events.imeche.org/ViewEvent?code=TLE7502

I wonder whether paraffin wax came up as the magix elixir. Isn't this melted candles?

[pumpkin]

I've been using wolf tooth chain lube recently. It's wet so obv gets dirty but can't deny it seems to stay on the metal longer and feels v.smooth when riding.