I wax. Do you?

No, no, you haven’t stumbled upon the wrong page. And no, I’m not over sharing about something in my personal life. I’m not talking about waxing our bodies, I’m talking about waxing chains.

What is the normal lube method? So the standard & time tested way of lubricating your chain is to use oil. You clean the chain, then put your bike chain oil of choice on every so often. This method is quick and easy, and pretty affordable. The downsides though: the infamous “chain tattoo” on your legs, dirty cassette and chainring, and a tendency for the chain to attract and hold a lot of junk. This is because the wet lubricant tends to hold onto the dust, pollen, and other stuff that is floating in the Texas air or coming up from the road.

So what is chain waxing and why do we do it? In a nutshell, chain waxing involves cleaning the chain, and then dipping it in a wax/Teflon mixture for at least 5 minutes. This method does take more time, as you need to clean the chain more thoroughly, heat the wax, and soak the chain in the wax, and then put the chain back on the bike. The benefits, however, make it (in my opinion) worth all the effort. The biggest reason, waxing is a dry lubrication method for your chain, so it tends to not attract and hold onto the dust/pollen and other contaminates in the air and coming off the road. The biggest benefit from this is seen in gravel riding, where there is a significant amount of dust/sand/etc that tends to come up off the road surface. You see this on your legs (as the sweat holds the dirt) and on your water bottles (as the condensation holds the dirt as well). Waxing doesn’t repel 100% of the dirt, but it repels most of it, this ensuring smoother operation of the chain in dirty conditions, and longer chain life in general. I’m also a big fan of waxing on my road bikes and mountain bikes, as it just is a less messy way to keep the chain lubed and running as it should.

Even better, the initial batch of wax lube lasts a very long time. I’ve had mine for 4yrs now and probably have another year before wax levels get low enough to necessitate a new batch.

Ingredients: 1lb of household paraffin wax, 5g of pure PTFE (Teflon) powder, and 1g of pure molybdenum disulfide (MoS2). All of these can be purchased from Amazon (and presumably other places like a hardware store). There is some expense upfront, but you’ll get so many years out of it, it’s worth it!

Examples:

How to wax the chain (1st time):

Starting with the the new chain, I put it in a clean coffee can (or an empty paint can, sold at Lowe’s or Home Depot) and add Mineral Spirits (just enough to cover the chain. I do this to remove any factory grease or oil residue. I let it sit for a few minutes, then shake it around, so it gets into all the small areas… After about 5 minutes, I look to see if the mineral spirits is fairly clean. If not, I empty the mineral spirits and add fresh and repeat the step until the mineral spirits is clean. I remove the chain (keeping the mineral spirits until next time). Using the 2nd empty coffee or peanut can, put the chain in it and pour Denatured Alcohol in (enough to cover the chain. Let it set for a few minutes, then shake around. This will remove the Mineral Spirits and further clean the chain. If the Denatured Alcohol comes out dirty, remove it and replace it with fresh. Repeat until it comes out clean.

Next, you need to heat up the wax mixture. You can use any number of methods to do so, including in a pot on the stove. But for convenience sake, and for the sake of your marriage, I’d recommend against heating it on the stove. What I use? An old crockpot I bought on Facebook Marketplace for $5. I put the block of parafin wax, and heat it until the wax has melted. I then add the Teflon powder and stir it in (you can use whatever you’d like (including your clean chain) to do this.

Next, you carefully set the chain down on the wax, and let it soak for at least five minutes (although there’s no harm in leaving it in longer if needed/desired). Then pull the chain out of the wax (I recommend a bent METAL coat hanger for this), and hang it up somewhere to cool. Note: some wax will drip as it dries, so do this somewhere you’re not worried about a little grayish wax mixture drying on (like your driveway). The chain will stiffen as the wax dries, this is normal, and it will loosen up after a few spins once it’s back on the bike.

How to wax the chain (2nd and subsequent times):

After that first time of heating/mixing the wax and Teflon, and using it to wax your chain, let the crockpot cool. The wax mixture will solidify, and you can then put the crockpot away until needed next.

So the next time you need to wax your chain, turn on the crockpot until the wax melts again. Stir up the wax mixture to ensure the Teflon powder is evenly distributed in the wax.

Before putting your used chain back in the wax, you’ll want to clean it off with a bike chain cleaning tool, if you can afford one, a hard bristle brush at least. Rather than running it through the chemicals again, as we did at first, I use boiling water. I boil a pot of water on the stove, put the chain in a caulender or strainer used only for this, and then pour the boiling water over the chain. This will help melt the dirty/used wax in the chain and remove it. Then, hang the chain to dry. Once the chain has fully dried, place it in your hot wax/Teflon crockpot, soak it for at least 5mins, hang to dry, and put it back on the bike. You know have a chain that is lined up, running nice and quiet, and very resistant to dirt and other contaminates.

From all of us at Moving Forward Ride Productions…Happy Riding!

*Questions: Comment on this post, and we’ll do our best to respond in a timely manner.

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