Lubes & Chains & Marginal Gains
If you were to rank the hardest working parts on a bicycle, you’d be hard-pressed to find a component that goes through more than the chain. And keeping that chain working well has become a real obsession for Marginal Gainers. So this episode, we dig into chains, lubes, and who should be using what.
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I was surprised to hear you don’t wax the chains on your and especially your wife’s commuter bike. It is probably OK if YOU have to put the chain back on after fixing a flat on the rear wheel. It is not OK for a pediatrician to arrive at work, already late after fixing the flat, with hands that are filthy and require a deep clean with a brush before changing clothes.
You haven’t emphasized this aspect of waxing enough! I have sometimes carried disposable gloves but never seem to actually use them. Nor do you show them in photos of your bike tool bags.
Hi – really enjoyed the chain and lubes podcast. Got a question for Josh…I’ve just bought some of the new silca synergetic wet lube for use over winter here in cold, wet Scotland. Come spring I plan to put a new chain on my road bike and thinking of using silca drip wax on it. It occurred to me that i could keep the synergetic lubed chain for commuting and wet weather riding and the waxed chain for dry, fun day out rides. So my question – do I need to have a different cassette to use with each chain or will it be ok to swap a synergetic lubed chain and a waxed chain over without changing anything else. Thanks!
Dear all,
Just one question to this quote from Zero Friction: „ If you add any other drip lube on top, then you will need to fully strip clean and prep chain again prior to waxing following Waxing Zen Master guide – with the addition of boiling water rinses first to melt off majority of wax before moving to solvents. Remember for chains the wax needs to bond to clean film free chain metal, if you put drip lube on top and then just re wax – expect wax will not bond to chain metal, and it may contaminate wax in the pot such that all future waxing’s wont go too well either. Smoove / squirt is often used for long extreme events like 24hr mtb racing or mtb stage races over top of msw as that works brilliantly, but cleaning prior to re waxing after is required to keep wax in pot clean and ensure good wax bonding to chain metal.“
Josh said, he would put the Silca Drip Wax every 200k or so until a fully re-wax after 600k or so. Does it work different then Smoove? Or do you have to do the whole chemical cleaning too, before re-waxing again?
Cheers,
Chris
Just a suggestion for another way to interact with Silca and the folks that listen/geek out to Marginal Gains, maybe a marginal gains forum? where folks could bandy about ideas around the Silca stuff and the marginal gains podcast topics?
Whats the best way to clean the microfiber towels?
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