My adventures in chain waxing: goals, reviews, suggestions...
Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2020 2:56 pm
Hey everyone,
Thought I’d share with you my past, present and future experiences with waxing chains. Just skim down to the products if you don’t care for introduction where I describe what I’m looking for with waxing.
Some background about me: I do only road and don’t generally ride in the rain. I was spinning about 7-900km/month on my bike until this May, now I switched up to 1200-1500+ km/mon and plan to keep it this way as long as I can. I am training my way to decent rankings in major European ultra-endurance events. This means that WAXING must above all accommodate two criteria for me: quickness (or easiness, if you prefer) of application and longevity. A third criterium—slightly less important but not that I overlook—is maintaining system clean. I can’t stand for the life of me black gunky drivetrains. Then honestly, I do not care about watt savings at all: even if they were there, how could I ever tell myself? Same goes with chain deterioration, but here it’s because I’m too lazy and unanalytical to keep track of wear rate divided by km ridden and stuff.
Now, I have a long, awkward and frustrated history of waxing experimentation behind me, and if I look back at how much money and time of my life I have wasted doing and buying all sorts of concoctions, I do see why non-waxers’ main argument is that it’s too fussy to bother. But I haven’t resigned yet finding that sweet spot between quickness, longevity and cost.
I dedicate this topic to reports, suggestions, reviews … that bring me closer to this goal. Everything I’ll write is simply my honest opinion about stuff I’ve tried and will try. I understand writing about waxing can get extremely nitty-gritty and detailed, to the point of Zero Friction analysis. Not me, here I’ll keep it real-life-only, empirical and short. I count to update the topic with new posts as I try different products, brews, and solutions in different contexts (training, training in longer rides, bikepacking, racing…). Bear in mind, what I’m writing refers to what I find works for me: I won’t go guessing how something might work for someone riding less/more than me, how anyting would change if keeping a chain dedicated to racing, etc.
I’ll start with past solutions in rough chronological order, beginning with
SQUIRT
Pretty cheap (is it the cheapest of waxing?). I brought it with me for my first bikepacking trip in summer ‘19, about 200km/day. It was always very noisy after the first two hours and I needed to reapply it every evening when stopping as it wouldn’t go past the 200km mark: poor. Add the famous build-up of soft dark gray residue and it’s a simple no for Squirt. I also found that of the five that I've been rotating on the bike, the chain that underwent Squirt for this trip has been the quickest and only to wear out past the 0.5 point of Parktools indicator.
MOLTEN SPEED WAX
Good but way too much time consuming to work. MSW exemplifies what is true of all bathing solutions: they’re the best as far as I can empirically tell, but the hassle is close to unbearable. I could push an MSW treated chain for 300, maybe 350 km and it was perfect on the bike until the very last kms squeezed, but I was working my five chains once about every 45 days and each time it took me a good size of an evening (say 3-4 hrs) for the whole process and mental preparation starting a couple of days before. (Yes, mental preparation. Like, bathing chains is scary stressful for me…).
Also rather expensive, if following usage advices from producers (plus intl shipping and customs from USA to EU).
HOMEBREWS
Then the time came when I decided it was worth a shot emulating MSW recipes on my own, mostly because it was cheaper and sounded like more fun.
Best I did was wax + 10% Sex Wax for surfers + 7% Teflon powder + 1% molybdenum powder. Were I to make a new batch I would skip on moly as it made it unpleasantly black—just a visual matter. This was actually quite good and I found I could push a chain even for 400-430 kms. Better than MSW, but bathing kept being annoying.
So I tried adding 1/5 naphta to 4/5 of the above recipe to apply it as a drip. Made it quicker—though I still had to heat the thing stored in a Squirt bottle to 60-70°—but nowhere lasting as long as the bathing running dry at about 300km plus proved unusable for ultra-endurance for two reasons: mineral spirits needing at least 7-8 hrs to evaporate on a still chain and impracticality of heating the bottle while not at home. Also, lots was needed and more than half was just dripping off the chain: I was collecting and putting this excess back in the bottle once done, but that was one more hassle in the process.
BANANASLIP ALL WEATHER TUNGSTEN
Bought and applied this yesterday, rode it today. VERY VERY impressed.
I cleaned thoroughly everything that chains touch on a bike and chains themselves the best possible way so to apply Banana on an immaculate system (chains: three baths in white spirits and last one in 99% alcohol, then evaporate; drive system: hairdryer melting wax and capturing it with cloths). Applying it was super easy and only four drops dripped off the chain. It took me 3:30 minutes and very little came off when I damped the chain with a cloth five minutes later as instructed. I might even skip damping at all next time.
4 grams went from bottle to chain (66gr to 62): if assuming 1gr is roughly 1ml, then 11-12 applications are possible out of its 50ml bottle. Assuming the numbers producer provides (roughly 300km in dry conditions), it means that a bottle lasts about 3500km. At 11€ a bottle on amazon, that means 5€ / month for me. Still not very cheap especially compared to traditional wet, but I can handle that.
Rode on it today for 160km all flat. Chain was very quiet to noiseless (funnily, noise didn’t just increase with the ride, rather panning in and out). The times when it was noiseless amazed me. It still has quite a bit to give, tomorrow I’ll ride for 130-150km more and see how dry it will feel after. Shifting (Sram Red Etap 11s) also improved from previous homebrewed drip wax&naptha, being… snappier, less spongy and dragg-y.. hard to describe but it’s a nice plus. The chain assumes a glossy appearance; cassette and chainset are left very clean, much more than with moly-treated wax. No flaking and if touching the chain only little dark grey residue sticks to fingers that easily goes away.
Since it dries off in less than half an hour when applied, it can handle bikepacking and ultraendurance just right, the time of a power nap is more than enough to have it ready.
Oh, the stuff smells like freaking chemical banana scent. God, why…
ABSOLUTEBLACK GRAPHENLUBE
Yes you’ve read correctly, no I’m not rich and yes I’ve been crazy enough to buy a 140ml bottle. I did for a sole reason: Zero Friction saying on his preview that longevity is beyond belief. Even if it is just half as much as producers state (i.e. 900-ish km against stated 1800 in dry conditions), this would be a game changer while racing ultraendurance.
But hold on: it should arrive on Tuesday and I will only try it on a bikepacking tour mid-August.
Wrap-up for now: if your lubricating list of priorities matches mine (easiness of application plus longevity plus cleanliness set against price), right now Bananaslip might be the best overall solution. I’m eager to try Graphenlube and will keep you posted.
Thought I’d share with you my past, present and future experiences with waxing chains. Just skim down to the products if you don’t care for introduction where I describe what I’m looking for with waxing.
Some background about me: I do only road and don’t generally ride in the rain. I was spinning about 7-900km/month on my bike until this May, now I switched up to 1200-1500+ km/mon and plan to keep it this way as long as I can. I am training my way to decent rankings in major European ultra-endurance events. This means that WAXING must above all accommodate two criteria for me: quickness (or easiness, if you prefer) of application and longevity. A third criterium—slightly less important but not that I overlook—is maintaining system clean. I can’t stand for the life of me black gunky drivetrains. Then honestly, I do not care about watt savings at all: even if they were there, how could I ever tell myself? Same goes with chain deterioration, but here it’s because I’m too lazy and unanalytical to keep track of wear rate divided by km ridden and stuff.
Now, I have a long, awkward and frustrated history of waxing experimentation behind me, and if I look back at how much money and time of my life I have wasted doing and buying all sorts of concoctions, I do see why non-waxers’ main argument is that it’s too fussy to bother. But I haven’t resigned yet finding that sweet spot between quickness, longevity and cost.
I dedicate this topic to reports, suggestions, reviews … that bring me closer to this goal. Everything I’ll write is simply my honest opinion about stuff I’ve tried and will try. I understand writing about waxing can get extremely nitty-gritty and detailed, to the point of Zero Friction analysis. Not me, here I’ll keep it real-life-only, empirical and short. I count to update the topic with new posts as I try different products, brews, and solutions in different contexts (training, training in longer rides, bikepacking, racing…). Bear in mind, what I’m writing refers to what I find works for me: I won’t go guessing how something might work for someone riding less/more than me, how anyting would change if keeping a chain dedicated to racing, etc.
I’ll start with past solutions in rough chronological order, beginning with
SQUIRT
Pretty cheap (is it the cheapest of waxing?). I brought it with me for my first bikepacking trip in summer ‘19, about 200km/day. It was always very noisy after the first two hours and I needed to reapply it every evening when stopping as it wouldn’t go past the 200km mark: poor. Add the famous build-up of soft dark gray residue and it’s a simple no for Squirt. I also found that of the five that I've been rotating on the bike, the chain that underwent Squirt for this trip has been the quickest and only to wear out past the 0.5 point of Parktools indicator.
MOLTEN SPEED WAX
Good but way too much time consuming to work. MSW exemplifies what is true of all bathing solutions: they’re the best as far as I can empirically tell, but the hassle is close to unbearable. I could push an MSW treated chain for 300, maybe 350 km and it was perfect on the bike until the very last kms squeezed, but I was working my five chains once about every 45 days and each time it took me a good size of an evening (say 3-4 hrs) for the whole process and mental preparation starting a couple of days before. (Yes, mental preparation. Like, bathing chains is scary stressful for me…).
Also rather expensive, if following usage advices from producers (plus intl shipping and customs from USA to EU).
HOMEBREWS
Then the time came when I decided it was worth a shot emulating MSW recipes on my own, mostly because it was cheaper and sounded like more fun.
Best I did was wax + 10% Sex Wax for surfers + 7% Teflon powder + 1% molybdenum powder. Were I to make a new batch I would skip on moly as it made it unpleasantly black—just a visual matter. This was actually quite good and I found I could push a chain even for 400-430 kms. Better than MSW, but bathing kept being annoying.
So I tried adding 1/5 naphta to 4/5 of the above recipe to apply it as a drip. Made it quicker—though I still had to heat the thing stored in a Squirt bottle to 60-70°—but nowhere lasting as long as the bathing running dry at about 300km plus proved unusable for ultra-endurance for two reasons: mineral spirits needing at least 7-8 hrs to evaporate on a still chain and impracticality of heating the bottle while not at home. Also, lots was needed and more than half was just dripping off the chain: I was collecting and putting this excess back in the bottle once done, but that was one more hassle in the process.
BANANASLIP ALL WEATHER TUNGSTEN
Bought and applied this yesterday, rode it today. VERY VERY impressed.
I cleaned thoroughly everything that chains touch on a bike and chains themselves the best possible way so to apply Banana on an immaculate system (chains: three baths in white spirits and last one in 99% alcohol, then evaporate; drive system: hairdryer melting wax and capturing it with cloths). Applying it was super easy and only four drops dripped off the chain. It took me 3:30 minutes and very little came off when I damped the chain with a cloth five minutes later as instructed. I might even skip damping at all next time.
4 grams went from bottle to chain (66gr to 62): if assuming 1gr is roughly 1ml, then 11-12 applications are possible out of its 50ml bottle. Assuming the numbers producer provides (roughly 300km in dry conditions), it means that a bottle lasts about 3500km. At 11€ a bottle on amazon, that means 5€ / month for me. Still not very cheap especially compared to traditional wet, but I can handle that.
Rode on it today for 160km all flat. Chain was very quiet to noiseless (funnily, noise didn’t just increase with the ride, rather panning in and out). The times when it was noiseless amazed me. It still has quite a bit to give, tomorrow I’ll ride for 130-150km more and see how dry it will feel after. Shifting (Sram Red Etap 11s) also improved from previous homebrewed drip wax&naptha, being… snappier, less spongy and dragg-y.. hard to describe but it’s a nice plus. The chain assumes a glossy appearance; cassette and chainset are left very clean, much more than with moly-treated wax. No flaking and if touching the chain only little dark grey residue sticks to fingers that easily goes away.
Since it dries off in less than half an hour when applied, it can handle bikepacking and ultraendurance just right, the time of a power nap is more than enough to have it ready.
Oh, the stuff smells like freaking chemical banana scent. God, why…
ABSOLUTEBLACK GRAPHENLUBE
Yes you’ve read correctly, no I’m not rich and yes I’ve been crazy enough to buy a 140ml bottle. I did for a sole reason: Zero Friction saying on his preview that longevity is beyond belief. Even if it is just half as much as producers state (i.e. 900-ish km against stated 1800 in dry conditions), this would be a game changer while racing ultraendurance.
But hold on: it should arrive on Tuesday and I will only try it on a bikepacking tour mid-August.
Wrap-up for now: if your lubricating list of priorities matches mine (easiness of application plus longevity plus cleanliness set against price), right now Bananaslip might be the best overall solution. I’m eager to try Graphenlube and will keep you posted.