I Waxed My Chain and You Should Too!

By Jerry Kirshman

We've all heard the hype, "wax your chain, it's great, it's smooth, no grease, you'll go faster, it'll make you younger, etc. etc.  Well recently I did, and wow am I glad that I did it.  But I am getting ahead of myself…

I recently got a new bike.   Now unless you think I'm one of these cyclists that always has the latest thing – no, not here.  This was my first new bike in 18 years and holy cow  there have been a lot of changes and I'll talk about some of these amazing innovations in future columns.   So with the new bike I decided that I would give waxing a whirl and see if it's all its cracked up to be or is it just crackpots wanting me to share their crock-pot pain.

The process for waxing a new chain was rather easy actually: the main principle is that you remove your chain from the bike, clean the factory grease off the chain, dunk it in wax, hang it to dry, put it back on and ride.  The chain should be relatively new when you do this because chain lubrication is designed to prevent wear, and there's no point in trying to turn back time on a used chain.  If you ran your chain with no lube, it would squeak its way quickly into failure, so let's not go there. 

So I bought some wax, a cheap crock-pot from Walmart to melt the wax (no I didn't use the family crock-pot, that would be an act of war), and made a hanger out of an old brake cable and some PVC and basement clutter. 

You first have to get all of the factory grease off the chain by cleaning it with something like mineral spirits.  You swish it around a few times in an old (clean!) jar, water bottle, etc. and repeat until it runs clean.  Then a few baths in denatured alcohol (I got these at Home Depot) to make sure the chain is free of any contaminants or anything else. 

Let the chain dry and warm up the pot.  Low setting is good enough to melt wax.  Lay the chain on the wax and watch for it to start to melt. I think this took about 15 minutes, not that long.  The chain will sink into the wax.  Then swirl it around for a few minutes and turn off the crock pot.  Once the wax starts to slightly harden on the surface, pull out the chain and hang it over the pot to dry.

Now you should work the links on the chain so that they can turn. I did this while watching TV.  I suggest something bland like American Cycling News.

Mount the chain back on the bike.  It will be a little stiff for a few miles but after that…wow smooth like glass.  It will stay pretty clean and last a long time.  You can occasionally top it off with bottled wax, every 200 miles or so.  I hope to get 750 or more miles out of a waxing.  Depends on the weather (which hasn't been much help lately) so we'll see.  But I can already tell you it's been great.  Wasn't that hard and it feels really smooth.  No more grease!

Let me know your experiences and suggestions.