Long term review: Waxing Chains

 I've been waxing chains on my family's fleet of bicycles for about 18 months. When I first started doing this, I considered it a hassle (and to some extent it's still a hassle). First, I had to clean the drivetrain fairly thoroughly (I didn't do a perfect job). I also made the transition during a winter where it actually rained quite a bit and found myself having to rewax the chain after each rain.

Over time, I transitioned first the tandem and when I built up Xiaoqin's Ritchey Road Logic and Bowen's Roadini I started them both on waxed chain. The tandem wore out a SRAM 1101 chain after only 1000 miles despite my waxing it, making me question whether the wax was helping a lot. But my custom single bike had gone over 6000 miles without the chain wearing out, which made me think that the tandem experience was due to my using a $10 chain instead of a $30 chain. I switched that bike over to a Shimano CUES chain just before last year's tour and sure enough, despite the tandem load and two tours, the chain is still going strong.

Xiaoqin had the same SRAM 1101 chain fall apart in the wax port, something that I couldn't attribute to any wear. I decided she rode enough to have two chains waxed at the same time, and would just swap chains whenever one needed to be waxed. This makes the process much easier and you're never at risk of having a bike out of service because the chain is being waxed.

We also tried the Silca Endurance Chip. I was skeptical that it would have any benefit, but this winter, Bowen went through fairly rainy commutes, and his bike was always outside exposed to the rain when he was at school. Despite that, the chain was still good, and he toured on the same chain (with a wax job both before and after the tour).

During the tour we exposed the bikes to rain on a somewhat frequent basis, and the bikes also rode through substantial gravel. In all cases, we only added liquid wax lubricant after a rainy ride. When the tour was over I measured all the chains and none of them had worn!

We now have only 4 bikes in the fleet that have not converted to wax lubrication. My Roadini, Boen's Salsa, my MTB, and Xiaoqin's MTB. All of them will get converted when their existing chains wear out. The implication of waxing means that chains are no longer consumables, and it's justifiable to buy chains that match the color of the frames for instance. It also means that I'm willing to run more expensive cassettes going forward as those will also not be consumables.

To my surprise, I'm now a chain waxing advocate. It's a hassle, but it does seem to provide benefits commensurate with the hassle involved.