Thoroughly cleaned and waxed my chain tonight with Absolute Black Graphinelube but now wondering how I should clean bike after my ride tomorrow. Winter riding in the UK means cleaning bike after nearly every ride but don’t want to reapply the lube every clean. Will bike cleaner strip the wax away? Do I need to take the chain off to clean frame, however how many times should I do that with a speed link. What do others do???
In your situation, I’d just have two chains. If your bike is literally getting wet almost every day, I’d have a “training chain” that uses either simple paraffin (or a petro-lube, honestly, if it’s really getting wet). And another “game day” chain for when you care about the last Watt.
In my experience, water dramatically reduces the lifespan of wax lubes.
I use wax in good weather. But in relatively poor weather, I don’t find that wax holds up too well.
I have another chain and decided to go with good ol’ synthetic 80w-90 gear oil as that’s what’s recommended for motorcycle chains and it seems to do fairly well in motorcycle chain tests (see this video). …I’m not saying that gear oil is going to save any watts compared to wax or any other fancy lubes, just that it holds-up reasonably well in poor/dirty conditions, does a good job of keeping moisture/rust out of chains, and is cheap-as-chips compared to other lubes. YMMV
I just lightly spray my chain with WD-40 and wipe off, to displace any water on my chain. Otherwise the outside can start to rust. I really don’t want to get the cassette etc dirty.
I reuse quick links until I feel the tension is going. But keep a spare in my on bike tool kit.
Use WD-40 if you like, but don’t expect much from it. Check out the video that I posted above. Not only was wd-40 amongst the worst in the friction tests, and didn’t really do all that well of keeping rust off the chain (about as good as cooking oil).
I use wd-40 as a degreaser/cleaner, but that’s about it.
I just lightly spray my chain with WD-40 and wipe off, to displace any water on my chain. Otherwise the outside can start to rust. I really don’t want to get the cassette etc dirty.
I reuse quick links until I feel the tension is going. But keep a spare in my on bike tool kit.
Get a wipperman connex link. You can reuse it as many times as you’d like and it doesn’t even require tools. Remove chain → wash bike → replace chain. Only adds a couple minutes total.
That being said, for my winter bike (gravel bike) I use silca synergetic lube.
I’m in the UK too.
I try to use a waxed chain or at least one that’s thoroughly cleaned (degrease, ultrasonic clean etc) before using ‘squirt’ lube)
But I do find that after most winter (hey or spring/ autumn/ most of summer in the UK!!) The chain gets wet and can rust. Even using a nickel plated chain (which does avoid the worst of the rust)
So I’ll get away with the wax / squirt when it’s dry out Nd not too filthy on damp days. But I’m the awful weather we’ve had the last month or two, I’ve had to revert to a wet lube to avoid rusty chain. I’ll just go back to a properly cleaned and waxed chain at Easter or May when the weather improves enough. I’m not racing on the wet lubed chain so I’m not bothered about a few W in winter or on a gravel ride.
I use a Park chain cleaning tool with the same dish soap and water that I use to wash my bike.
But I use Molten Speedwax- Not sure if it stands up to cleaning better than what you are using.
I seem to get ~200 miles before I need to re-wax.
Squirt is a good drip-wax that’ll work for a short time if you need just a quick touch-up without having to completely rewax.
Thoroughly cleaned and waxed my chain tonight with Absolute Black Graphinelube but now wondering how I should clean bike after my ride tomorrow. Winter riding in the UK means cleaning bike after nearly every ride but don’t want to reapply the lube every clean. Will bike cleaner strip the wax away? Do I need to take the chain off to clean frame, however how many times should I do that with a speed link. What do others do???
Keep spare quick links around, and take off the chain to wash your bike as you please. I say keep spares as for certain quick links you’re only supposed to use them a few times like that. Or buy the kind intended to be reused a lot.
I wax chains and this is what I do. I just put the chain in a clear sandwich bag while I wash the bike after removing it.