Are wax lubricants any good in the wet?

The lubes and waxes you have tested right now seem to be petty heavily filtered by what‘s readily available on the Aussie market. Do you plan to expand that list and also include options that are more common on other markets or are you interested in getting samples of those?

Hey Adam, wet rides: I just did a 2 hour road race on the wettest of rides, windy, full on rain, standing water, completely wet sock even with rain covers and the waxed chain help up really well, it wasn't any nosier at the end. Also, the chain had about 400 km of riding since last waxing so it wasn't a freshly waxed chain. I'm using the Super Secret wax. Definitely better than most lubes! The Silca Synergetic is also amazing in the wet. Did a 3 hr wet ride last year and chain was still quiet at the end of the ride but cleaning lubed chains and cassettes is way more work than waxed ones.

“Zero Friction” for me to get info on chain waxing - why and how.

I’m a SILCA hot and drip user for 3years. Ride in all conditions. I rotate 2 chains when more than 3 days of wet riding. Going off today’s Strava with 56mm of rain overnight only myself and 5 other in Brissie rode in the wet. The rest indoors on Zwift. I get 16-20,000 out of a chain. Cassette and chainring still ✅✅

Can you test standard cheap parrafin wax?

grit and going black(dry /wet lube) vs rust(wax). For the cost, get a new good brand, bottom of the range chain every month or two. It'll be cheaper

What about bikes that are almost always rode in the rain?

I'm just about to give immersion wax another try, since I do currently have a bike that I only ride in dry weather, where I think that'll work well. I tried it diy with some parafin canning wax around 15 years ago and it was great until it rained, which made it kind of useless for my daily commuter (need to rewax/swap chains daily). If I have a couple chains ready to go, I think it'll be easy enough to handle on my good weather bike the odd time when I get caught out, and it'll be nice to keep it clean, and running smooth.

The big issue is what to use for my "foul weather" bike? I can see how a "reset" is fine for a bike that occasionally gets a bad ride in the rain on a weekend race, or occasionally caught out when the weather unexpectedly turns, but it's not unusual for me to ride that bike on my commute for weeks straight, where every single day is very wet for at least one, and sometimes both directions.
I'm currently using pro gold. I just ran out of one bottle of extreme, and got a bottle of the standard stuff to replace it. It seems to work well from the perspective of staying on the chain reasonably well(no squeeks/noise/audible grinding), and while it is definitely a "wet" lube, it feels more greasy, and less tacky than some others I've used in the past. (Triflow, especially)
I've tried drip waxes, boeshield, and squirt, both of which have worked well for me on my dry bike as long as I've cleaned the chain well, and never mixed with anything else, but neither seems to hold up well enough in the wet (need to add some after every wet ride), and when they do get gritty, they're impossible to clean.

The pro gold is probably not great, but to me it seems like it might be one of the better ones where "resetting" is not practical, on a bike that will often be used in pretty much impossible conditions.

If you had to ride a bike in the wet pretty much every day, knowing that it'll be seeing a lot of water, and a significant amount of grit. (But certainly more wet than gritty, unlike offroad/mud etc.), what would you use? Obviously I just stick with cheaper parts on that bike, knowing that it'll be impractical to properly maintain them, but I'm open to suggestions.

I have a bike with an SRAM 12 speed AXS flat top chain, SRAM says not to re-use the quick link does anyone have any experience with that? I tried re-using a KMC shimano compatible 12 speed quick link on another bike and that was such a great success unfortunately with the link snapping open. I really wouldn't like that to happen whilst riding my road bike though....

The options of wax based drip seem difficult to find at my LBSs. Squirt is available. Is this a viable option?

Gritty full wet Oregon days--the wax doesn't hold up at all. I'll be going wet lube for winter, and immersive wax in summer. We get rain all winter, and zero rain all summer. Perfect setup. Looking forward to wax on my MTB too, where it's dry hot and dusty all summer.

What do you think about using steam to clean the chain? Will the heat and a little bit of water remove the contaminants or will it drive them deeper into the chain? Any other drawbacks to be aware of such as overheating the wax?

Thanks for all the info. I am curious if you have ever tested the Mountain Flow plant based chain lubes? Thanks again

I'd love to see your take on the efficiency of the new SRAM MTB Eagle Transmission flat top chain

Silca says you can use Super Secret drip to "top up" a hot wax treatment of their Screte wax.

Does Rex black diamond have a drip lube product that can be used in conjunction with their Rex black diamond hot melt wax?

Yeah, my Silverback came without any gorilla.

I believe the truth tungsten has a alcohol carrier, so they evaporates really quick. It’s nice I use that as recommended by I believe zero friction cycling or molten speed wax

Totally agree, immersive waxing is the way to go.
I went the diy route and just mixed some parafinewax and PTFE-powder in a slowcooker.
I've 3 chains, every few months I do a boiling clean and emersive waxing.
Before and after every wax-job I drag a magnet thru the molten wax to get rid of most metal contamination.

When my chain starts being more noisy than I like, I change it for the next one. probably once a month, I'd guess.
I avoid riding in wet weather, I only cycle for the fun of it.

Good info, Thanks.

Love the info. Got me into hot waxing. But there is sooo much info in these vids it’s hard to digest.

Yes, long winded, I am leaving before seeing the main point of what I think your video is about.

I love a good irony story 😀👍

People who are misled by Zero Friction Cycling and just plain dumb as!?s. Thank you for providing some data based testing vs. the marketing bs based purely on some MBA’s dream of how to sell more stuff.

I looked and couldn’t find an answer to this question; do you recommend rewaxing when I wash my bike? I figured if I’m taking it off to wash the bike, why not just rewax but not sure if it even needs to be removed when washing the bike. My process is to Run my chain through boiling water and rewax every time I wash the bike. Is this overkill? Your thoughts on this ?

TRUE or FALSE? excess dry lube on the outside of the chain does not help your chain and only potentially collects dirt

In one video you did mention that Flowerpower drip wax is plant based wax (its a mix with parrafin) and dont get washed out easy with hot water. So it also may hold up better with wet drives. In europe I know two companys that offer drip wax which is 100% plant based wax. Would be interesting how they would compare.

As a petroleum engineer in the R&D sector and an avid cyclist, I can truly say that this channel is one of those that can truly be relied on with regards to testing methodology. This is one of my go to's when I need consumer advice. Never thought anyone would be in the right mind to take channel names too literally 😅. I think zero friction cycling is apt and cool. The giant selling normal sized bikes was a good clap back 😂. Another good video. Your channel has recently piqued my interest in pursuing R&D on novel lubricants.

I don't mind rewaxing my chain after wet rides (even though I live in a rather rainy place), but how do you guys afford the bunch of quick links you need? I reuse them about 3 times now. So in a rainy week I need about two quick link pairs...

Hi Adam. I've done immersion waxing using Silca and I'm topping it up with their Secret Lube about 3x before doing another immersion. Just a day after topping it up, I've had 2 hours of riding in pouring rain, and worse I forgot to immerse or even wipe the chain immediately. Now there are bits of rust forming, so I did an immersion, but the rust remained. What should I do if I need to remove the rust? I'd greatly appreciate your help here. Thanks!

Great content adam, love your website as well 👏.
Thinking about winter and have a question for you. I live in the uk and ride road throughout winter where there is some water/mud/crap on the roads most of the time. In these conditions is it ok to wipe/dry after ride and apply tru tension for a few applications before immersing in wax?

Great video Adam thanks! I have one question. I have been immersive waxing for about a year and have managed to avoid wet riding for the most part. However that is going to change in the very near future as I will start bike commuting this fall in Oregon. My question is should I thoroughly dry the chain with a heat gun between the wet ride and dropping it in the wax pot? I really appreciate your work and am totally sold on the benefits of waxing.

I ride about 7,000 miles on gravel in the warm months in Minnesota. I was hesitant to wax due to experts saying that wax wasn’t good in wet conditions. Finally gave immersive waxing a try this summer, using MSW and a drip wax between immersions. I Did a gravel race last Saturday on a freshly waxed chain and rode for a solid hour in a thunderstorm mid-race. I was expecting to need to stop and add lube but it never happened. Bottom line was the wax held up well and the chain was the cleanest part on my bike. It was about 8 hours until I was able to clean the bike. The chain had zero rust on it, while my wife’s showed quite a bit of rust running NFS. I removed the chain which made cleaning the bike much easier and threw chain #2 on when I was done. Including turning on my crockpot and boiling the water to clean the dirty chain, I spent 2 minutes rewaxing the chain. I’m convinced that waxing IS the way to go for gravel and even wet conditions.

hahahah, LOL, love the MOTO comments....(Master Of the Obvious) always a "check out my big brain " person out there.

Lots of great information in this video. Most of your literature elsewhere states that it's important to dry the chain with a hair dryer before re-waxing (e.g. after a boiling water flush). My question: is it ok after a boiling water flush to give the chain a quick wipe and then wax it? Does it matter if the chain isn't totally dry before waxing?

Brilliant reply. Pedantic people eh.

thanks for your work about friction in cycling. i have one question: what's the best lube or wax when you practice ultra cycling when you need to lubrificate your transmission during competition for 4-5 days (you wait when you use wax normally)? and same question for bikepacking for 1 week or more? its more simple lube wet or drip wax in this case?
thanks

Maybe the set time is endlessly long on Rock 'n roll Extreme, it's like water, maybe why it washes off in minutes if it gets wet, but that lube seemed to be hopeless, I'm not going to wait days for it to work.
The lube smells like spirit. So probably has alcohol in it.
here's a quote from the EU shop ''Get the chain really wet, this stuff cleans and lubes all in one.''
This lube seems like mostly water and alcohol, with some lube in it.

or you can get a belt drive bike

Thanks so much for all of your advice and videos. I'm toying with the idea of immersion wax on my winter beater as I'm getting tired of replacing drivetrains. My commuter bike lives outside unfortunately. I do imagine leaving it outside without a chain would decrease the likelihood that it gets stolen at least. :)) OTOH the idea of spending a single minute in the pitch black morning fiddling with a quick link in the cold and rainy winter... Well that makes me hesitate. I'll probably whip up some numbers on approximately what I'd save each day of having to do that and figure out if that amount is worth the frozen fingers during those few months.

About the name, a tree word name is very good and a fictional theme is brilliant for the wise guys like me. For the mass market, try a second brand like "serious lubing". With hot moms in the logo of course.

About the set time after wet rewaxing, just use two chains and have one of them ready when the other sets.

no way does this need to be an hour long

Do you recommend a flush and redip in the pot every muddy ride on mtb

I can say, based on my personal experience, driving on the roads of Moscow in winter (on average, a slight minus Celsius and a bunch of reactants create a mixture of water, salt and sand)... Most wax lubricants do not work, especially drip ones. But if you add a little marine grease to the wax, the situation will seriously change because such a composition washes off the chain much more slowly and the lubricant protects the chain much better from such an aggressive composition under the wheels

Best solution - get rid of the chain! Go belt or shaft drive.

Tldr: 👎👍? (See comments)

This is easy wax does not work in the rain who wants to keep waxing a chain I live in UK wax is not good in the first place I don't think the friction will just go through surface and smear it so that it appears to still be covering the surface

My personal experience - I wasted a lot of money on the various snake oils sold at bike shops. After first try of immersion waxing all of my previous chain lube and cleanliness problems went away. Plain ole paraffin wax works just fine in the wet. In fact I intentionally wet it on long trips - to clean it. My wife and I have done numerous long tours and bikepacking rides. Three examples of different kinds of trips: GDMBR, Katy Trail, RAGBRAI. With the range of weather and road conditions my chain maintenance for both bikes is the same. Sometimes at a water source I’ll fill a bottle and rinse the dust or mud off. No scrubbing, no wiping, just squirt water at chain while turning drive train backwards. All done, chains serviced for a couple days. If on routes with a lot of gravel dust or crushed limestone (like Katy) I do the chain rinse before lunch. I want the water evaporated away before we start churning up dust again.
The key to effective immersion waxing is thoroughly cleaning away the manufacture’s petroleum goo. Let the wax adhere to the metal, not some residual film of petroleum.