Chinertown
Other Resources => Maintenance, Mechanics, & Tools => Topic started by: coffeebreak on June 28, 2023, 10:20:32 AM
-
I am curious what lubricants community here is using on their bikes? I started with T9 Boeshield, kept at it for a long time. Then switched to Squirt wax lube and finally to Rock'n'Roll gold type for past few months and quite happy with it. Squirt was good but I found out that it flakes out pretty quickly and doesn't last as long as they say especially if you ride on dusty trails. RnR has been good from that aspect. Anything else that you had good luck with?
-
I'm using some wax based zefal lube which was the first I've bought. I wonder how it compares to the real wax. I'll admit I don't take care of my drivetrain much and I keep procrastinating using real wax. Maybe next chain (tm)
-
Been waxing my chains for years, it's awesome. So clean! It's meant to save a few watts too. Followed the videos from that autistic Australian guy.
Have i mentioned how clean they make the bike?
:D
I use a metal bowl over boiling water (bain marie in french), instead of a rice cooker. As far as i can tell, it does the same thing.
-
Been waxing my chains for years, it's awesome. So clean! It's meant to save a few watts too. Followed the videos from that autistic Australian guy.
Have i mentioned how clean they make the bike?
:D
I use a metal bowl over boiling water (bain marie in french), instead of a rice cooker. As far as i can tell, it does the same thing.
I have always wondered about this process and then procrastinated like kbernstein above lol. Is there a process to remove factory lube from chain before boiling it in wax soup? And do you replace quick-link every time you wax the chain?
-
Currently on Silca Synergetic oil. No complaints so far, but nothing to write home about either. I'm not super picky about lube or meticulous about a spotless drivetrain, so this oil is good enough for me. It doesn't need to be reapplied too often.
FWIW before this I was using the RnR Holy Cow and I didn't care for it. Also gave White Lightningn a shot some time ago and noped that stuff right off my chain.
-
I've been using Squirt for a while on my road, mountain, and gravel bikes and am happy with it. If you leave the bottle in the sun for a while it seems to flow a bit better onto the chain.
I use White Lightning Epic Ride (the dry stuff) for the low-mileage bikes because it's cheap and seems to work well even when applied on a somewhat greasy chain.
I tried Rock 'n Roll Gold and it was OK on my road bike, but my mountain chain got really noisy after about 15 miles.
-
I have always wondered about this process and then procrastinated like kbernstein above lol. Is there a process to remove factory lube from chain before boiling it in wax soup? And do you replace quick-link every time you wax the chain?
You should always remove the factory grease on a new chain. I typically let the chain in a jar of mineral turpentine/white spirit for ~36 hours, shaking it every couple of hours and it works perfectly. I believe I have also learned this trick from the "autistic australian guy" video on home wax, except I was too lazy to do the next step of melting wax
-
I was using squirt but have switched to smoove. Smoove seems to leave much less wax residue on the derailleur and chain ring. I don't ride in the wet much so no experience in that aspect but lots of dusty conditions and I am very happy with the performance of smoove.
-
I use wax too, for years now + the "australian's" additives 8)
Then when travelling I tried: squirt, then smoove, and now UFO Drip.
Each step was an upgrade.
And I always reuse the same quick link(Eagle link on Eagle and Campagnolo chains, and SRAM road)
-
I use wax too, for years now + the "australian's" additives 8)
Then when travelling I tried: squirt, then smoove, and now UFO Drip.
Each step was an upgrade.
And I always reuse the same quick link(Eagle link on Eagle and Campagnolo chains, and SRAM road)
Have heard good words about UFO Drip, but never heard about Smoove until this thread where its mentioned twice! I will note it. Many thanks!
I was using squirt but have switched to smoove. Smoove seems to leave much less wax residue on the derailleur and chain ring. I don't ride in the wet much so no experience in that aspect but lots of dusty conditions and I am very happy with the performance of smoove.
Good to know. I will try Smoove once I am out RnR gold.
I've been using Squirt for a while on my road, mountain, and gravel bikes and am happy with it. If you leave the bottle in the sun for a while it seems to flow a bit better onto the chain.
I use White Lightning Epic Ride (the dry stuff) for the low-mileage bikes because it's cheap and seems to work well even when applied on a somewhat greasy chain.
I tried Rock 'n Roll Gold and it was OK on my road bike, but my mountain chain got really noisy after about 15 miles.
Personally, I didn't have good experience with White Lightning. RnR gold is good for road. I think RnR blue is a MTB specific, heavier duty lube.
Currently on Silca Synergetic oil. No complaints so far, but nothing to write home about either. I'm not super picky about lube or meticulous about a spotless drivetrain, so this oil is good enough for me. It doesn't need to be reapplied too often.
FWIW before this I was using the RnR Holy Cow and I didn't care for it. Also gave White Lightningn a shot some time ago and noped that stuff right off my chain.
RnR gold has been good for me. Wasn't aware of Holy Cow though. And same for White Lightning, didn't work for me.
-
Personally, I didn't have good experience with White Lightning. RnR gold is good for road. I think RnR blue is a MTB specific, heavier duty lube.
I know White Lightning gets a bad wrap since the Epic formulation does very poorly in the friction and wear tests, but it works well for me for keeping a drivetrain quiet with a minimum of work. I'm only using it on the other family bikes that will never see enough miles to wear out a chain.
-
On a related note, what do people recommend for removing the factory grease? I'm interested in finding the least nasty stuff that will do the job.
-
I sonic clean and wax. Before waxing I used Smoove for a long time quite happily.
First step was when I bought a heated sonic cleaner from Aliexpress, so sonic clean then Smoove.
Then I bought some wax and a $10 mini slow cooker/crockpot.... never looked back.
10 minutes in the sonic cleaner, a dip in the wax and the chains dry amazingly. The effort involved is less than a standard chain clean and lube, but you do need more waiting time, eg. 30-60 mins for the wax to melt, then 10+ hours to leave it to fully cool & dry (it could be less, I just leave it all day or overnight). But the results are brilliant, I have 3 bikes all with waxed chains, and the one bag of wax I bought looks like it'll last ages.
-
I am curious what lubricants community here is using on their bikes? I started with T9 Boeshield, kept at it for a long time. Then switched to Squirt wax lube and finally to Rock'n'Roll gold type for past few months and quite happy with it. Squirt was good but I found out that it flakes out pretty quickly and doesn't last as long as they say especially if you ride on dusty trails. RnR has been good from that aspect. Anything else that you had good luck with?
Sounds like you're already using 3 of the very best wax-based lubes. T9 was magical on my latest bikepacking build, but I just used the regular spray can after spraying my steel frame. I need to get the squirt bottle.
Currently I'm using Rock n Roll Gold as well, also great stuff.
-
https://zerofrictioncycling.com.au/ (https://zerofrictioncycling.com.au/) is the rabbit hole of looking after your drive train (ignore those other Australians, they are not nice people).
Guides on how to remove factory grease, how to immersive wax etc and well as test details on most the major chain lubes both oil and waxed based.
Personally I immersive wax, as it is cheaper in the long run (chain, cassette and chain rings last a lot and I mean a lot longer), quieter and cleaner too.
-
On a related note, what do people recommend for removing the factory grease? I'm interested in finding the least nasty stuff that will do the job.
Hands down best option is buy an ultrasonic cleaner. If you get a big enough one you can put cassettes and chainrings in there too. Even jockey wheels and stuff if you are deep cleaning.
-
We really just need to get on gearboxes and belt drives though.
-
Hands down best option is buy an ultrasonic cleaner. If you get a big enough one you can put cassettes and chainrings in there too. Even jockey wheels and stuff if you are deep cleaning.
I have a big one, enough for an Eagle cassette.
But it is too big to heat(better results)
So I use pots or bags, with hot water in the big cold bath.
I wouldn't take one that big again.
-
I recently switched to immersive waxing. I was able to get a $9 USD slow cooker and a $20 USD ultra sonic cleaner big enough to hold a bike chain. I didn't want big equipment sitting around, so I kept everything fairly small. Now that I have my waxing system down, the procedure is straight forward and I'm able to do all my chains quite easily. I now enjoy having a clean drivetrain on all my bikes!
-
I recently switched to immersive waxing. I was able to get a $9 USD slow cooker and a $20 USD ultra sonic cleaner big enough to hold a bike chain. I didn't want big equipment sitting around, so I kept everything fairly small. Now that I have my waxing system down, the procedure is straight forward and I'm able to do all my chains quite easily. I now enjoy having a clean drivetrain on all my bikes!
What chemical, if any, do you use to clean new chains ?
-
What chemical, if any, do you use to clean new chains ?
prob overkill but this works for me:
petrol bath
few baths of turps
couple of baths in metho
round in the ultrasonic cleaner
quick small metho bath just to check the condition of the metho to make sure it's completely clean/oil free/grease free
into the oven to dry
throw it onto a bent coat hanger, give a light dusting of ptfe in a bag and dump it into the wax pot
-
That’s an involved process!
-
What chemical, if any, do you use to clean new chains ?
Not as intensive as PLA, but about two rounds of degreaser in the ultrasonic cleaner, a brush scrub down and dry pat down before dipping the chain into the slow cooker. My wife thinks I'm cooking something outside in the backyard! Lol
-
I put several chains in an immersive bath (Silca wax) then I top up after about 300 km with Silca's secret luber drip. Preparing several is a good strategy. After two or three uses of the drip, I do a reset, that is to say chain in a jar filled with White spirit (petroleum essence) then immersive bath with double pot technique (see Zerocyclingfriction). In summary, I clean my chain correctly without having to take 15 days of vacation to do it.
-
I followed Zero Friction's guide:
I didn't want to deal with multiple baths of mineral spirits, so I got some CeramicSpeed UFO drivetrain cleaner ($28 for 500mL) and stripped 3 factory chains pretty quickly with ~100mL. I expect to be able to continue to use this 500mL for quite some time (50 factory chain cleanings?)
For waxing, I happened to have a mini crock pot lying around I'd never used before that is now dedicated to waxing chains. I used Silica Secret Hot Melt from Amazon that I got for $34. I put about half of the bag in the pot, it's a small enough pot that it's almost difficult to fit the chain in but it's not too bad. I left the solid wax in the pot to heat up for next time.
I have my mountain bike and road bike chains brand new waxed now, we'll see how they hold up. I plan on wiping off the outer part of the chain and then "dunking" them in the wax pot every 300 miles or so.
-
prob overkill...
I was more interested about the chemicals used in the ultrasonic bath.
And if you were only doing ultrasonic. Apparently not ;D
-
Relber. The white and the red one are excellent for mtb and road in my opinion. The green is thicker than the blue, too thick unless you are in really muddy conditions.
-
I was more interested about the chemicals used in the ultrasonic bath.
And if you were only doing ultrasonic. Apparently not ;D
haha nah ultrasonic ain't good enough for factory grease. fac grease can be really thick shit.
right sorry, if you're not from australia, those chemicals probably make 0 sense.
metho = methylated spirits, denatured alcohol
turps = mineral turpentine, can be sold as a close variant white spirits in other countries
petrol .. well just regular pump petrol. Just anecdotal, but I found 1 petrol bath seems to reduce the number of turps baths needed by 2 for whatever reason
i still give a very small turps bath after i boil the chain before rewaxing. it appears perfectly brand spank clean after boiling prior to rewaxing, but once you run it through a small turps bath, it definitely seems to get more black shit out. i don't know for sure, but i'm just assuming it's from a build up of greasy road grime crap contaminating the chain and then not coming out when i boil it. just my experience, may or may not be true for anyone else.