sciguy wrote:
John,
I spent a whole late fall, winter and early spring riding a paraffin waxed chain, power meter equipped bike on my Tacx Neo trainer. When I first set the unit up, the Neo and my Power2max read within ~ 1 watt of each other when producing 200 watts and I was thrilled by their agreement. Then over the weeks of use there was a slow shift in the two units reading. I took that as some sort of drift in one or both of the meters and was somewhat disappointed in the situation. Eventually after riding that chain well over 1000 miles there was ~ 4 watts difference in power reading between the Neo and Power2max. Long story short after rewaxing the chain the two meters were back with ~ 1 watt again. So what I'd been seeing rather than power meter drift was decreased lubrication. This next winter season I'll take the time to track the change. My recollection is that the two meters read very close for the first 300 to 400 miles. Waxed chains are definitely especially quite the first 50 miles or so but I believe even though they get louder they're still well lubricated for another 300 miles or so. The Squirt certainly won't hurt though especially if it eases your mind.
YMMV,
Hugh
I re-waxed the chain on the tri bike Friday evening and I think this is the third time this chain has been dipped into hot wax. With going by the thorough initial cleaning of a new chain in several mineral spirit baths and a couple denatured alcohol baths before waxing the first waxing lasted almost 1,000 miles. The second waxing last much less and probably because I had a few wet rides. This third re-waxing I wiped off any grit but that was all that I did before putting it into the hot wax for about 30 minutes. (note to self to order more quick links) Saturday and Sunday's ride were nice to have a quiet chain again. I have not really tracked wattage on the chains.
I hope to at least start keeping track of training time and/or miles for each bike chain.
I have to say that I am still happy with the result of a continual clean drive train and the chain feels just as smooth to me as an oiled chain. I dropped the chain once on Saturday's ride and not even the slightest black on my finger. I have friends that look at my bike and ask if I just cleaned the drive train, but the bike they have seen has over 500 miles in wet and dry conditions and it looks like it was just detailed.
Edit: my point from the ramblings above was that it appeared the initial treatment of the new chains with the thorough steps, such as from Molten Speed Wax directions, seems to have given me the most miles and I am getting less miles out of re-waxing. However, it is still a super simple process to re-wax even it I do get just a few hundred miles out of it.
Last edited by:
Felt_Rider: Aug 14, 17 4:28