How often do you rewax your chains in winter?
and what is your hotwaxing setup?
1) when it needs it. I can tell by the feel when you twist the chain - you can feel when all the wax is gone. itf when you twist it you can feel metal on metal its time. Varies from a hundred or two miles if used in slop to a thousand miles or more on road
I chuck the tin on the hob, when its nice and runny chuck the chain in for a few mins and stir, take the tin off the hob and hang the chain over it
A few people do / did not get the longevity I do. I think one issue is that if the chain is too hot the wax runs out again but soil types may also play a part. Peaty soils seem to strip it quicker
I'm lazy - I use an old slow cooker on high, turn it on with the chain on top (with giant paper clip threaded through it, tied to a bit of string to pull it out) and leave until it's all runny.
Pull it out with the string looped over a nail in the garage roof rafter, wipe down the outside to remove excess and leave to cool.
Good reminder - I need to go mine as winter's coming.
Wide flat camping stove in garage. With a wire basket to lower the coiled chain in and out of the tin.
It’s not really a basket, it’s a bit of wire grid th longer bits bent up to hold it.
Redo when it sounds like it needs it.
Old chip pan on a camping stove when I do it.
Find it better in 9 speed than 11 speed though.
I bought the cheapest Argos 2 person deep fat fryer. It was about £15.
It means its all staying in the garage and you can adjust the temperature and shake the basket to agitate the chain
Ian
In summer about once a month, in winter pretty much after every ride. I get home, hose the chain off to get the mud off it and drop it in the cold DFF and switch it on. Go and clean off the rest of the bike and then get the now hot waxed chain out of the DFF and hang up, wipe side plates and leave to cool. Refit chain once cooled. It sounds like an arseache, but it really isn't. I got 2250 miles out of a 12sp chain on an ebike ridden in all conditions doing this.
Argos fryer here too
road/commuter about 3-4 times a year (probably more than needed)
mtb probably 4-5 rides in winter or 1 entire summer
Cheapest Argos deep fryer and roughly every 2 weeks.
My problem is I ride twice a week in the late evening and dont feel doing much to the bike when I get home (that sort of thing gets done after sundays ride) so I give the chain a quick dry with a cloth then spray with motorcycle chain wax to see me thru to the weekend.
DFF method but had some surface rust issues last winter when first using as with above poster after wet night rides I don’t want to be doing a full wax. Sorted when I realised a wipe with a white spirit rag prevents the worse.
Also taken to using an apron when lifting and wiping a newly waxed hit chain. Awful stuff if you get it in clothes.
About every 2 weeks or 5-6 rides.
I’ve only just started the whole waxing thing - but have now expanded it to all bikes so time will tell as to how long this lasts per bike.
The first time I did the “jar of degreaser, shake, move to clean jar of degreaser and repeat” prep. The second I used an ultrasonic cleaner. The last time just ran chains through one of the park tools on-bike cleaners (with the spinning brushes etc). The first two approaches seem to have worked the best as the chain needs to be totally degreaser before starting. Sounds like subsequent times it’s not needed as any “grease” in the chain is actually wax already.
I bought the cheapest slow cooker from Argos - £15 and it takes any safety issues away plus means I can nip outside for to take chains out and hang them up to cool etc so saves wax splashing around in the kitchen and needing cleaning up etc.
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My chains become slightly noisy once the wax is just about gone. 300 to 400km of commuting will do it. Or a week is there's riding through deeper puddles/floodwater.
Exactly what TJ says, it's all about the feel. But the actual length of time varies loads. Like, I've done race weekends where it's been absolutely done by the end of 2 days, just because it's been so powerwash wet. No criticism there, that's the sort of riding that normal lube just doesn't handle so you'd be cleaning and lubing after 1 day and still it'd not last the day.
As above, putting a number of miles on it is fairly arbitrary.
I'd say 500, but that's the same as saying "once every 2 months I'll end up riding in conditions I'd not choose to".
I also tend to either rotate chains on my MTB more frequently than its needed just so it's always fairly fresh. And tend to wax more than one chain at a time, so if the road bike is feeling dry after a month of weekend centuries I'll chuck in the singlespeed and any used MTB chains as well.
I've said previously, I think the reason chains last so long with hot was isn't the low friction, it's because it takes really awfull conditions to wash it off in 1 ride. Where liquid lubes tend to wash off every average winter ride. And it's. Probably that last few miles without lube that does the damage.
Putoline it's miles 495 to 500.
Finishline it's miles 20 to 25.
So if you re-apply before its needed then you never have that problem with any lube.
DFF here and I have taken to being a bit more patient with it.
Steps I follow are:
set DFF to 110C
put the chain in the basket, sit it on top of wax
wait for it to melt and the weight of the chain to sink the basket into the wax - 10 mins or so.
swish the chain around getting all the air out and the wax in - leave for 15 mins.
remove chain and hang up over DFF (at 110C it does not really drip at all when I hang it up)
wipe down once with cloth to get excess off the outside of the links/rollers
I am careful not to get the wax too hot as it a) goes too runny and b) the man at Putoline said some of the oils evaporate if it's too hot, basically I don't let it smoke.
I also do a full degrease every couple of waxes so that any remaining wax that has dust suspended in it gets washed away - no idea if this helps or is worth doing but it makes the chain nice and clean.
I run two chains so I always have one ready to go on.
The only time I see any rust is if I use MucOff cleaner on the cassette. While the MucOff is really good at getting mud off the tyres it's too harsh for anything else IMO. I now use the same Autoglym body shampoo that I use on the car, along with a small brush to get the crud off, and this works a treat.
All this chat of taking your chains off every few hundred miles makes me think you have a much easier way of getting your quick links to open and re-use than I do.
Or do you simply have a stash of affordable quick links?
I forked out for a couple of the Wipperman reusable links, but in truth have never had anynissues splitting and rejoining normal links, just get a set of quick link pliers 😉
I wash bike as normal, let it dry then by hand pedal backwards. If you’ve got a few links where the wax has gone the chain will be v stuff/crinkle/refuse.
Tin on camping stove (need to buy a fryer) I use a pair of pliers and a hook bent out of an old spoke. I like to get it hot enough to be nice and liquid but not too hot that it's a bubbly spitting mess, and give the chain a good swish about... I hang it up to cool a bit and then try to wipe as much excess off as possible before putting it back on the bike, you don't want big clumps to wax accumulated on the mechs so getting rid of the excess is a must.
Frequency depends on season and bike use, road bikes in summer can go 500 miles plus, MTB/gravel bike in wet, muddy winter can still do 250 miles between applications.
I do have the benefit (or curse if you like) of multiple bikes in rotation meaning I can choose a different bike if the chain need a boiling, what often happens is that I end up doing 2 or 3 chains at the same time making an evening of it.
I bought the cheapest Argos 2 person deep fat fryer.
Surely that's too big 😉
I'm not too particular with mine and I find on a mountain bike it lasts minimum about 5 rides, max more than 10. More on a singlespeed.
Moved to deep fat fryer last year. Heat that up (mine at max doesn't smoke, I suspect maybe it's not as hot as others'? I have turned it down a bit anyway), leave chain(s) in there about 10 mins, hang them up, gentle wipe down once they've cooled a bit. I usually do 2 or 3 chains at once and rotate chains on my geared mountain bike. Use a bit of bent wire to lower them in and hang them off and I leave them hanging til I use them.
Before I wax a new chain I just ride it as it comes til it needs lube. Then I jiggle it in an ice cream tub of degrease, rinse and wax.
I’ve said previously, I think the reason chains last so long with hot was isn’t the low friction, it’s because it takes really awfull conditions to wash it off in 1 ride. Where liquid lubes tend to wash off every average winter ride. And it’s. Probably that last few miles without lube that does the damage.
I think it's also that it really gets into the rollers, having been submerged in a lower viscosity boiling wax and then allowing it to cool in there makes all the difference. It's not so much being "washed off" as "washed out" which is of course harder.
Regular bottled lubes like finish line etc don't really have the chance to get into the rollers because of the way it's applied, a moderately viscous blob dobbed on the outside might carry some of the lube into the roller before it sets, but most stays on the outside and gets washed away by normal use/conditions...
Those lubes might be great, but nobody can afford to submerge their chains in a boiling bath of finish line to find out.
I don't know if putoline is that special really, like some others have previously, I did a mini (not very scientific) experiment an lobbed some old candles and a wee bit of engine oil in a frying pan to try. It was pretty effective I could get a couple of hundred miles out of a chain with it and seemed to deal well with moisture but dried more solid than putoline and would easily crack up under some pressure so I don't think it had the long term staying power, and of course lacked the other additives like graphite or molybdenum... Putoline is a softer, stickier wax with more lubricating additives, but I think the main reason for its tenacity/longevity is the way it's applied as much as what it is...
