I have a dedicated indoor training bike with a waxed chain (don’t ask, I have my reasons).
The trainer cassette keeps getting gunked up with wax. It’s the same wax that I use on my outdoor bikes (Silca hot melt), where I never have this issue.
It’s driving me crazy because it’s causing the chain to skip on the smaller sprockets and I have to keep cleaning it out.
Anyone else had this issue with wax on an indoor bike? Could it be sweat?
by tapered_elephant
2 Comments
Could be some oil contamination in the wax, that would make it less flakey and more sticky. Add a couple tablespoons of stearic acid to the waxpot and clean off all the gunk using deagreaser and/or (very) hot water.
Stearic acid is a “oil conversion powder” it’s cheap and readily available.
Here is my go to video for pretty much anything chain wax related. https://youtu.be/bhxFJ8Zq9Mg (about stearic acid at 10:29)
The wax is melting.
What is the temperature inside your house vs outside?
The chain will keep warming up slowly due to the mechanical effort being put through it (those transmission power losses have to go somewhere) but there’s no cooling breeze like there is on a moving bike.