What lube?

[jefflinde]

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. 

[AzureEssence]

We really just need to get on gearboxes and belt drives though.

[carbonazza]

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.

[jonathanf2]

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!

[carbonazza]

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 ?

[PLA]

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

[Ludo]

That’s an involved process!

[jonathanf2]

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

[Ar26]

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.

[eddietheengineer]

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.

[carbonazza]

prob overkill...

I was more interested about the chemicals used in the ultrasonic bath.
And if you were only doing ultrasonic. Apparently not 

[mirphak]

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.

[PLA]

I was more interested about the chemicals used in the ultrasonic bath.
And if you were only doing ultrasonic. Apparently not 

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.