Waxers - how often do you rewax your MTB chain?

MTB winter - every 200- 500 miles.  MTB summer every 1000 or so miles,  Road every couple of thousand miles, commutting every 1000 miles

Thats the ole putoline hot melt wax

the chains can get dry on the outside much quicker but there is still loads left in the rollers where it is really needed.  If its dry on the outside then run the chain thru an oily rag

Twisting the chain lets you know if there is still some in the rollers.  You can feel when its gone

I use Squirt and the chain gets a lick every 4 weeks but that is normally when I give the bike a 'deep' wash - which is a 10-minute job but does involve a brush over cassette and chain pedalled backwards with brush in place.
The 'quick' wash is because I can't reach the brush, but involves the same hose to wet bike.
Squirt on chain and leave to dry overnight and it is fine.

Aware that won't count as waxing for the purists, but I don't use oil.

wait, school me..
even in winter every 200-500 miles? in winter i'm literally degreasing and scrubbing the chain every ride to wet lube up
does this apply to the type of winter rides were the chain ends up covered in clag? how do you deal with that with a waxed chain?

When it needs it, which is maybe 10hrs in the absolute worst conditions, but that could probably be extended. I re-wax when it starts getting noisy, but even then it's much less noisy than a wet-lubed chain after 15 mins of mud, so I could probably go for longer. I'm fussy about lubrication.

does this apply to the type of winter rides were the chain ends up covered in clag?

I find that no matter how claggy round here it doesn't really get into the chain, so I usually just hose off and put away. That said, I don't have the stickiest clay to content with as I hate riding in that shit and I'd rather ride road instead.

in winter i’m literally degreasing and scrubbing the chain every ride to wet lube up

That's exactly why I use Putoline, to avoid that. With wet lube, I'd clean and scrub and the chain would be full of grit after the first few puddles. With Putoline it's got several hundred miles of actual lubrication.

Get a 1 litre chip fryer and it's less bother than a bottle of lube and a cleaner device. I probably do every 100-200 winter miles or so on the MTB and every 200-300 or so on my son's school commuter but that gets ridden everywhere in every weather and left out in it too. I'm probably over doing it. It is so easy to do around other minor maintenance. That's the trick for me, get the chain in and then spend the cooking time doing the other little jobs like checking brake pads, topping up some sealant, air can service.

Get the chip fryer pre-loaded with the stuff out, plug it in and set to around 130 deg - preferably outdoors as it pongs a bit.

When it's all nice and melty pop the chain off using your quick link. Pop the link bits safely to the side. Chain in the dippy basket thing. Pop it in the fryer and go do something else nearby for 10-15 minutes.

Come back to it lift out and let it drip into the fryer. Cheap pair of old rigger gloves and when chain has cooled enough to handle in gloves wipe off excess wax and leave to cool.

Reinstall with quick link.

Even better if you have multiple bikes, just set up a little production line while you do other maintenance especially if like me you store up then jobs and then purge it in one relaxing afternoon.

the chains can get dry on the outside much quicker but there is still loads left in the rollers where it is really needed. If its dry on the outside then run the chain thru an oily rag

This is probably what I'm missing and why I'm doing mine more than needed 😀

does this apply to the type of winter rides were the chain ends up covered in clag? how do you deal with that with a waxed chain?

Yes.  I just leave the chain to dry and next ride all the dried mud falls off in the first few turns of the chain.  Any wax on the outside of the chain is covered in dust but the chain is still well lubed inside where it counts

Its well worth noting however that this did not work for some folk.  Lots of discussion as to why but no real resolution

Its also worth noting that IME chain life is something like 4X as long

Great info thanks, not as bad as i was thinking then.  Was going to give it a shot but put off by the idea of redoing it every couple of rides. This sounds way better

It turns into a rusty mess if you do proper mountain biking in Scottish winter.

Great in the summer and when it's only a little damp

another +1 for the sorts of numbers - I've actually stopped using Putoline on my summer road bike and now use a white wax (I can't recall right now whose, but it was a guy on here's new venture, I have the box in the garage still). Not because Putoline isn't brilliant - it's just not shiny and my road bike is a tart.

Impressions are that it doesn't last as long, probably ca 500 miles but is just as easy to use - no degreasing, chain off, into the slow cooker and left there for an hour or so. Put back on this morning, being a harder (almost candle wax type) it needs a bit of flexing to get it to articulate and then takes a bit of time of riding before it starts to change gear smoothly. Literally 2 mins though of the first ride, I just run it up and down the block a few times.

It turns into a rusty mess if you do proper mountain biking in Scottish winter.

Have you tried running it thru an oil rag?  I do also tend to use mid range plated chains.  Any rust is only surface rust on the outside anyway

But as above - it doesn't work for some folk  Peaty soils seem to strip it quicker as well IME

Get a 1 litre chip fryer and it’s less bother than a bottle of lube and a cleaner device.

This.

I do re-wax much more regularly than TJ is quoting, in really bad conditions maybe once very couple of rides, using homebrew paraffin wax, beeswax and grease mixture (which I prefer to Putoline as it seems to run cleaner than putoline)

However even then, it is lots less faff.

I also do the trick of waxing chains when doing other jobs, and also do them where possible as a batch across multiple bikes.

I also run a couple of chains per bike and alternate them, this means I generally I have one waxed and ready to just pop on as needed (e.g. if I need to get the drivetrain in tip top condition in short order)

This all sounds like loads of faff, but it really really isn't.

Also apart from initial outlay for fryer and wax - very cheap.

It's hard to learn much useful from other people's experience. Like, I've often had to do it after a weekend's riding, but scottish enduro racing is absolutely savage on drivetrains, 2 days of grinding paste and often not even a hose inbetween. Even my normal winter riding is brutal on chains because the colder wetter it gets, the less I want to do distance and hills and the more time i spend splashing down horrible offpistes in forestry plantations. So TJ's mileage is a wild fantasy for me, but my mileage would be a sign of total failure to him

But, basically, I do it when it feels like it needs it, I'll top up with other normal lubes sometimes, and I probably end up doing it about 10 times a year for my 3 mountain bikes.

I don't ride mine in absolute slop but I do ride in all weathers, road and tracks on he same bike. In the winter I do it every 200 miles or so, much less in the summer. I can vouch for the longevity of the components using Putoline (currently around 2500 miles on a single chain/cassette with little sign of wear on my wear indicator - well less than .5 anyway. That said, I am using an XTR chain which appears to last way longer than any others, so worth the additional cost, my original SLX chain lasted only a few months. My only gripe is the gunk that collects around the jockey wheels and to a lesser degree on the chainring. It's not loads and I'd rather have the gunk than have to replace components more frequently. My LBS say they use Squirt exclusively now but then they'd never heard of Putoline, so I'm wondering if Squirt is the next best thing and will be cleaner and chains will last nearly as long - a bit more laborious in terms of frequency of application admittedly but on a road bike this might be preferable. 🤷‍♂️

Peaty soils seem to strip it quicker as well IME

Definitely this.

Road bike - it basically lasts for ever.
Mountain bike in the summer - it basically lasts all summer, maybe one reapplication
Mountain bike in the winter - it can be gone after four hours of a horrible, wet, splashing through peaty puddles ride

My LBS say they use Squirt exclusively now but then they’d never heard of Putoline,

Putoline is intended for competition MX motorcycles.  Its not intended for bicycles.  I have / had old motorcycles with non o ring chains so knew about it ( well actually linklyfe which was an even older product) so I tried it out and was impressed with how well it works and thus told folk on here.  I'm not suprised its not a generally known about thing in the bicycle world.

My only gripe is the gunk that collects around the jockey wheels and to a lesser degree on the chainring

That's the reason I prefer homebrew paraffin wax mix to putoline.

I don't think it's actually a problem, but it looks a bit grim

I’m not suprised its not a generally known about thing in the bicycle world.

Indeed, most people, in fact, thinking about it, everyone I mention it to has never heard of it. So I wonder if the best known thing in the bicycle world is Squirt or whether there is another "second best" option to Putoline. I think there's no question that wax is better than oil though.

That’s the reason I prefer homebrew paraffin wax

What recipe do you use for your homebrew mix?

does this apply to the type of winter rides were the chain ends up covered in clag? how do you deal with that with a waxed chain?

As a few have said, I think it depends where you ride. Peak grit is brutal on chains and if it's really wet and grindy I sometimes rewax after a day ride on the mountain bike - which sounds like hassle but basically means rinsing the grit off when the bike is hosed down post ride, popping off the chain, drying it with a hair-dryer on a foil metal tray, then sitting it on a slow cooker full of wax until it melts into it, hang up to dry and refit.

When it's dry, wax lasts for ages, even off road. Wiping with oily rags is a deathwish in the Peak, it simply attracts gritty slurry and turns the whole thing into an advanced grinder.

If anyone here is Putoline curious, I have a tiny deep fat fryer containing most of a tin of Putoline that’s no longer in use. Make me an offer!

Sadly it didn’t work for my ebike commuting needs, where the combined torque of impatient me and the motor on turbo means that we wear away the cassette teeth before the chain wears. The only partial solution for that has been plenty of wet lube so the outside of the chain is coated - and now moving to a heavy duty LinkGlide cassette.

Mountain bike in the winter – it can be gone after four hours of a horrible, wet, splashing through peaty puddles ride

This is what killed it for me. Every longer weekend ride was a deathmarch of grinding chain for the last couple of kms that saw me carrying  a wee dropper to make sure I made it home. Then the thought of cleaning it, removing the chain and getting all the DDF out and set up - it took one 'brew' to realise I had to do it outside in the cold and rain - the house I had at the time was all once down-stairs space; so the smell... Then I split some on a pair of trousers. TBH I never tried it in the summer, perhaps I should've started then

I went back to drip lube after that. Found Viking Juice from Juice lube that seems to last in the same conditions, seems to build up on the chain over time. I don't doubt that wax is probs the best lube overall, if/when some-one puts it in a drip bottle I'll be happy as a lop.

@Daz I think it is that has made his own melt wax that he is selling - and he is trying to formulate a drip top up for it

I started following him on IG just so I could track his progress!

I don’t doubt that wax is probs the best lube overall, if/when some-one puts it in a drip bottle I’ll be happy as a lop.

That's pretty much what Smoove is. Needs the same chain prep initially as immersive waxing, but then is a drip-on lube.

Similar numbers to those above.

On the road it'll go for 500+ miles if it's dry.

Off-road, it lasts ages in summer and in winter it varies. Basicly it's good untill you get one really shitty ride. So a month of Tunnel Hill (loamy muddy off piste) and Swinley (ginger grinding paste) is fine. If it's torrentially raining and the whole ride is slop it'll strip it in a couple of hours. But that's riding in conditions you'd be miserable in.

So it might me 10 miles, but more realistically 100+ off road miles (and any interlinking road / fire road on the ride is basicly a freebie).

And if you have multiple bikes it's easy to do them all at once. So in reality I do them all whenever the most used one needs it and they never get anywhere near actually running out of wax. Which is another reason chains last so long.

Putoline is intended for competition MX motorcycles.

Interestingly, also for speedway. My FiL used to sponsor an Edinburgh Monarchs rider, and is still a big fan, so we've done a number of pit walks and the smell is glorious!

It's not perfect, but it's the best thing for me on all the bikes (commuter, mtbs and eeb). It'll last a really big ride in shitty conditions, which nothing else does, and in summer it'll go a very long time before needing updating.

In winter, in the wet and mud, I'd say I re-wax about every 4 or 5 rides.

I am about to experiment with filling an old pritt stick tube with Putoline, rubbing it on the chain and melting it with a heat gun.

If the bike gets washed I’ll rewax the chain, so in FoD slop that could be every ride. Sounds like an arseache but I’ve got the routine sorted; get home, remove chain, hose mud off, put chain in cold DFF, switch on DFF, wash bike, remove chain from DFF, wipe off, leave to cool, refit to bike.

Under no circumstances should you put a freshly washed chain into a hot DFF. Ask me how I know… 🙄

That’s pretty much what Smoove is

i think Viking Juice is similar - certainly the instructions are the same and in use pretty similar.

plus it’s called Viking! Which yknow, makes me a Viking by default. That’s how it works right?

Indeed, most people, in fact, thinking about it, everyone I mention it to has never heard of it. So I wonder if the best known thing in the bicycle world is Squirt or whether there is another “second best” option to Putoline. I think there’s no question that wax is better than oil though.

I don’t use it but a wax I’ve heard of is Molten Speed Wax. I’m happy with UFO Drip which i guess is sort of similar to Squirt, Smoove etc.

Under no circumstances should you put a freshly washed chain into a hot DFF. Ask me how I know… 🙄

Been there, done that 😂

I now give it a swish in a big jar of "miscellaneous cleaning solvents* of doom", which removes a surprising amount of rubbish from even a clean looing chain.

*a special blend white spirit, diesel, paint thinner, a punctured can of WD40, old petrol that I really should take to the tip.

Under no circumstances should you put a freshly washed chain into a hot DFF. Ask me how I know… 🙄

Yep, done that one and I agree we shouldn't tell people it'll ruin the surprise for them when they do it.

“miscellaneous cleaning solvents* of doom”,

Every shed should have this but only if it's a long way from the house.

@BruceWee homebrew wax recipe is not exactly scientific. I made it up after reading an article I can't remember.

Anyway it's approximately:
2 big handfuls of paraffin wax pellets
1 small handful of beeswax pellets
A blob (about a level tablespoon) of grease
Half a teaspoon of PTFE powder

When the wax is getting a bit low I just bung that in the fryer to top it up.

Works for me. I mainly prefer it because it runs cleaner than putoline, but it doesn't last as long.

The anti-waxers will be along shortly to tell us it’s all a load of rubbish.

Have you ever noticed how there are clusters of chain wax enthusiasts around 5g masts? It's the Chinese!

I'm kind of a putoline disciple but I tried smoove and squirt and tbh they were both a bit crap. Squirt especially seemed to work really well in some conditions but was just disastrous in others, ride-endingly awful. Depends on the exact mud I suppose. But those all went in the bin, I'd rather use a traditional lube like epic ride. And still do, sometimes, as a topup for putoline

big_scot_nanny
Full Member

Interestingly, also for speedway. My FiL used to sponsor an Edinburgh Monarchs rider, and is still a big fan, so we’ve done a number of pit walks and the smell is glorious!

Oooh who was it?

Anyway it’s approximately:
2 big handfuls of paraffin wax pellets
1 small handful of beeswax pellets
A blob (about a level tablespoon) of grease
Half a teaspoon of PTFE powder

Cool, I'll maybe try that as a summer mix. If I waited until I finished my plutoline it would probably be about 20 years.

@leffeboy I get my Brazilian every month, HTH.

Only once a month??? Your poor partner, it'll be like velcro down there for the last week or so!

Oooh who was it?

I think the most recent was Matty Weathers, but he’s been involved for years with the Monarchs. I enjoy going, it’s a great format and usually exciting racing. Shame it’s not bigger

Putoline is intended for competition MX motorcycles.

It's not really though is it TJ.
It was always more of a road bike thing.
Hardly anyone uses it in the MX race scene.
It was slightly more popular back in the 70's/80's but it was never actually formulated for offroad use.

I've also tried it on my MTB's and not really a fan of it.
I ended up having to "top it up" almost every ride.
Just seemed a waste of time going to all that faff then still having to lube with another wax product anyway.

I think one thing everyone can agree on though is that wax products are a lot better than oil based when it comes to chains.

road bikes use "o" ring chains with sealed for life lube in the rollers.  Hot wax is useless for them.  Only classics and off road use non o ring chains.  Chap above said it was used on speedway bikes

Edit:  linklyfe was what we used back in the day

I'm sure you have spent most of your life around the MX/Enduro scene so I'll bow down to your actual experiences of what folks in that scene really do.🙂

And yes you can use it on o ring chains as people used to do when it was more popular.