I made a move to the dark side of waxed chains over the summer and the worst has happened. How should I fix this? And is my chain done for?
A few facts:
- I keep my bike in the shed
- The chain is 100km or so in from its latest wax
- My last trip on the bike was wet, I washed it before it went into the shed and made an effort to dry the chain
I keep my bike in the shed and it’s
by DogBrethren
25 Comments
I found that with waxing too. You probably should have taken it off and cleaned / rewaxed.
Waxing might not be the best solution for riding through the winter in locations where salt is used to keep roads ice-free.
Drop it in evapo-rust over night. Clean it. Re-lube. Re-use.
put to trash 😀 i do the same with many many, and nothing solve that is like before…
It probably won’t matter. Just keep riding. The main point of wax is that you never have to have a dirty greasy chain. The efficiency gains are minor and I have seen tests where even an old completely rusted chain is still 95% efficient.
Just keep riding.
Wax is not very good against rust, so the chain will catch it if you will ride in wet conditions and not dry it afterwords.
Lube and ride until you change worn chain. Rust will wear away.
A bit of surface rust is fine, just brush it off, clean the chain, re wax.
Try not to leave the wet chain in the shed next time. Ideally, take it off and either clean and re-wax right away, or keep it somewhere dry and warm, wrapped in the cloth until the next batch waxing session, and put on another waxed chain.
Having more than one in rotation is useful anyway.
When my waxed chains get wet. I take the chain off and throw into the wax crock pot. I switched to Connex removable links so I don’t wear them out.
Ignore it. Wax isn’t as good as oil at coating and rust proofing a chain.
You can add beeswax to your wax mixture to make it stay put longer in wet conditions. A little bit of 75w90 goes a long way with the same results. But ymmv, these were my wax hacks with paraffin a decade ago. I haven’t waxed in years and haven’t tried any of the $$$$ waxes you can buy.
A couple drops of triflow and a ride.
Next.
Yeah, I keep wax on my MTBs and it’s perfect for that application – I don’t ride those in the wet here (soil can’t handle it anyways) but for commuting / road bikes I regularly ride in the wet, it’s boeshield all the way. It’s a good happy medium between traditional wax and wet lubes, and it’s easy enough to reapply. Don’t have to break out the crockpot in the frigid garage, either.
Keeping my bike in the shed led to rust, in my opinion, on all rustable small steel bits. It sure is easy to say “just keep the bike in a warmer spot” but if you have the ability try that too. You’ll have less liquids on the bike even after a thorough drying
Ride your bike don’t put away wet
Wipe off the chain after you are done riding
If you wash it,you should re wax it. A good drip wax like silca super secret does a good job of extending the time between hot melt without having to remove the chain
Rust just comes with the territory with waxing. If you can see the rust it’s not really a big deal. Keep on rollin’.
Why does it need fixing? Just ride the bike.
Waxing is for bikini lines.
Use oil. Or grease.
Stop washing your chain.
Its not a jewelry chain its supposed to be oily.
I stopped waxing (most of) my chains for this reason. It rains a lot where I live, roads are salted 3 months of the year. I can’t be bothered taking off my chain after every ride and one of my bikes often lives outside. Wax is saved for special princess the road bike that only sees sunny days – for this use case wax is ideal
You should dry your chain with a cloth after every wet ride. BTW, how many miles do you have on that chain?
I’m curious. Why wax a chain? I know MTB riders who do this in New Mexico and Arizona, and in a dry dusty sandy environment it keeps the chain nice and clean. In normal moisture and rain it sounds really inferior to Finish Line lube. What’s the advantage?
Well, the first snow has arrived and it’s not gonna be long until they start salting the streets here.
I’m just gonna increase the re-waxes. I have been going with 300km up until now, but I’ll probably do it by 200km or even less, still have to see.
Out of curiosity, I’ve boiled the chain just now for 5 minutes. Previously, I only used a kettle and let the chain steep for a bit. Actually boiling works much better though and it removed quite a bit of dirt. The chain didn’t leave any marks on my hands prior to that but evidently, it’s still quite dirty.
Ride it
Don’t forget to wipe down and dry your cassette. I wax my chain and I don’t recall my chain getting any surface rust. My cassette did though. It was just superficial and it polished off with use. Still it was annoying.
You can’t fix rust on a chain except lube it with an actual lubricant, not wax.