*** Preliminary version… updates coming over time ***

The riveting world of bike drivetrain lubrication…

Those who have spent time riding with me know that I can blather on about drivetrain lubrication for hours. Sure, drivetrain efficiency matters, in terms of how much time it costs you in a race. In perfect conditions, the differences may be pretty small… maybe 1/2 watt to 4 watts, depending on the lubricant. Of course, when chains are not maintained or they are operating in tough conditions (wet with dirt or gravel), the differences can be much higher. When the distances get long enough, the losses start adding up. Generally, a 1 watt difference may cost a rider an hour for Race Across America, or around 1.5 hours for Trans Am. So, the difference in good conditions may be up to six hours of additional ride time in Trans Am… but it could be more if you are riding rain and pick up a lot of road dirt.

Background

For this blog, I wanted to focus more on how your choice of lubricant impacts your pocketbook directly. First, I’ll cover a bit of the basics, so everyone is on the same page. Lubricants provide a thin film that keeps metal parts from making direct contact. This reduces the metal-to-metal wear, and prolongs the life of your chain, cassette and chainrings. While the lubricant doesn’t directly coat the cassette or chainrings, as your chain wears, it elongates (sometimes referred to as “stretches”), and this causes your cassette and chainring to wear prematurely. If it important to understand that your chain doesn’t need lubrication on the outside… it needs it inside the small rollers, that ride on the pins. As a matter of fact, you DON’T want excess wet lubricant on the outside of the chain, as it can carry the dirt inside the roller, and accelerate the wear on the pins (which causes elongation and wear of your cassette and chainrings). As a whole, good wax lubricants (e.g. Silca waxes, Molten Speed wax, etc.) protect your chain much more effectively than traditional wet lubricants (Rock ‘n Roll Gold, etc.), for a couple of reasons. The first is that traditional wet lubes tend to capture dust and dirt, and then the mixture becomes something like a lapping compound, which is essentially used to grind down metal. This is exactly what we don’t want on our metal bike parts. The other benefit of wax is the movement of dust/dirt (or lack thereof). As traditional wet lubricants migrate into the interior of the chain while riding, they can carry the dust/dirt (and our new lapping compound) into the pins to increase the wear rate. When wax lubricants are applied to clean chains initially, they flow into the chain internals (rollers and pins) and harden to fill the empty space, preventing dust and dirt from getting inside your chain. If the dirt can’t get in… it can’t damage your pins.

What is your lubricant costing you to run?

Now that we understand a little about chain wear, let’s talk about how much this wear is potentially costing you, based on your choice of lubricants.

Zero Friction Cycling (ZFC) has done a great job of providing independent testing of chain lubricants, cutting through a lot of marketing hype. While they are excellent on the technical side… they are not so good on conveying the information to most cyclists. Ironically, Josh Poertner from Silca (who does an excellent job of conveying technical information in general), has created two videos (here and here) to simplify and explain ZFC’s testing protocol and what the practical takeaways (and even they can be a bit long and challenging… but worth watching).

Recently a 3rd party calculator was created from ZFC’s data, to make the results much more understandable, and much quicker to compare. You can find the website/calculator here.

You simply put in your type or riding (mixed road cycling, dry off-road or wet off-road), your groupset, your lubricant choice (of what has been tested, and your distance ridden, and it gives you an estimated cost based on the number of chains, cassettes and chainrings you’ll go through in those conditions.

Examples from some of the lubricants I’ve used over time

To help quantify what kind of differences you may see in cost, I’ve done several iterations of the calculator. I used a few of the lubricants I’ve used with all three of the conditions, based on 5000 miles of riding:

First up… the old favorite of many… Rock ‘n Roll Gold (RnR). This is a traditional wet lube that tested as one of the fastest many years ago, by an independent company called Friction Facts.

So, what we see here is that on typical road cycling, in 5000 miles we’ll go through 2.3 chains, 1.2 cassettes, and 0.4 chainrings and just over 2 bottles of lubricant, for a total cost of $343. Of course, we won’t have to buy an extra 0.4 chainrings, but this does give us an idea of the wear cost over time. Next, RnR will cost $435 if we are in dry off-road (think dry gravel, riding across the plains with dirt/dust, riding across the desert… really anywhere with blowing dust/dirt), and a whopping $1,076 when riding in wet-offroad (think gravel in the rain, mountain biking in rain, or anywhere where you’ll be picking up the combination of water, dirt or mud). Hopefully, nobody is riding a full 5000 miles of this nonsense… but it provides a good relative reference, and how much this negatively impacts drivetrain life. As a reminder, the primary issue here is that the rain carries that moisture into the chain internals, makes a nice lapping compound, and then creates premature wear.

Next, let’s look at how a good immersion wax compares… Silca Hot Melt Wax. With immersion wax, you dip a fully cleaned chain into melted wax, swish it around, and let it dry. The benefit is that it fills the voids inside the chain completely, helping prevent dirt from getting into the chain itself, besides providing good lubrication between metal parts.

It’s easy to see the significant benefits in terms of cost of using this over RnR:

• RnR: $343/$435/$1076

• Silca Hot Melt: $74/$101/$173

And this doesn’t include the cost to change those parts, if you are having your LBS do this instead of doing it yourself (or your time).

Next, we can compare a drip wax from Silca… their Silca Super Secret Drip Wax. Rather than requiring a full immersion of the chain, you simply drip the wax on a fully cleaned chain, and you get most of the benefits of immersion wax. That said, drip waxes don’t fully fill the chain internals (some of the carrier they use evaporates out as it dries… something like 90% filled), so it doesn’t provide quite as good of protection.

We can see how these lubricants compare:

• RnR: $343/$435/$1076

• Silca Hot Melt: $74/$101/$173

• Silca Super Secret Drip Wax: $201/$115/$631

Since it doesn’t fill the spaces/voids within the chain as well, it doesn’t provide quite as good of protection when the dirt is moved inside the chain when it rains (either in the mixed on-road or wet off-road conditions), but does provide very good protection in dry conditions.

Next, let’s look at another drip wax lubricant, from another company… the Mariposa Flower Power Wax. This is a bit different, as rather than being paraffin-based like most other waxes, this one is sunflower wax. It seems slightly more oily than paraffin but tends to last a bit better in some conditions and tends to dry faster when first applied (Silca’s drip can take 12 hours, whereas Flower Power is only 3 hours, per each company’s instructions).

We can see how these lubricants compare:

• RnR: $343/$435/$1076

• Silca Hot Melt: $74/$101/$173

• Silca Super Secret Drip Wax: $201/$115/$631

• Mariposa Flower Power Drip Wax: $114/$77/$519

We can see that this is an improvement over the Silca Drip Wax in terms of cost. The only downside is that it is not recommended (by ZFC) to mix wax types. So if you start with Silca, you “shouldn’t” put Flower Power over top or vise vesa. More discussion on this at the end when I cover my thoughts / uses.

Lastly, I’ll look at another wet lubricant, Silca Synergetic. Again, because this is not a wax, it doesn’t “fill the voids” inside the chain. That said, lubricants have come a long way since RnR was developed, and Silca uses additives that significantly reduce friction and wear as part of the formula.

We can see how all of these lubricants compare (mixed road/dry off-road/wet off-road):

• RnR: $343/$435/$1076

• Silca Hot Melt: $74/$101/$173

• Silca Super Secret Drip Wax: $201/$115/$631

• Mariposa Flower Power Drip Wax: $114/$77/$519

• Silca Synergetic Wet Lube: $202/$256/$445

You can see that the Synergetic is much better than RnR for a traditional we lubricant. It performs better than the drip waxes in wet conditions, but not as good when the conditions are dry (again, being a wet lubricant, it will trap dust/dirt when it comes in contact with it, carrying it down into the pins and rollers).

So… what should you do with this information?

First, check out the online calculator and put in your miles, riding type, etc. and see what makes sense for you. Do remember though that the differences do not include the cost to change those parts, so take that into account as well. Then of course there is what you want to do to maintain your chain… do you want to take the time for full immersion wax, just drip wax, or maybe something in between?

You can use the calculator to see what makes the most sense for a particular race. For example, I was recently looking at Trans Am with an athlete, and if we put in 4200 miles (with mixed road conditions), we can see that RnR would take 1.96 chains (high risk to try it on one chain), 1.22 chains on Silca Synergetic (maybe a reasonable risk on one chain), and would only be 0.66 chains on Mariposa Flower Power.

In terms of what I recommend for you… I don’t. 😉. Everyone is a bit different in their application. I’ve used all of these products over the years (and several others), and here are my thoughts on what I’d use for some of the bigger races, or what I use today:

• For a supported/crewed race like RAAM, I’d use a fully immersion waxed chains. Full immersion waxing does the best job of penetrating the chain and filling the voids, providing better lubrication and lasting longer. I’d recommend immersion waxing several chains, and simply swapping the chains as part of routine service (when bikes are swapped or the racer is resting), at pre-determined intervals. If you want to make this very simple, you can buy Silca pre-waxed chains, if you don’t want to take the time to prep and immersion wax the chain yourself.

• For an unsupported race like Trans Am, Bike Non Stop US, The Great American Wheel Race or even Tour Divide, I’d personally consider two options/strategies:

  • The simple answer would be to start with a Silca immersion waxed chain, and then just add Silca Synergetic on top, after a couple of days of riding. This acts like starting with a clean chain a few days into the race since it will help keep dirt out for the first couple of days. Silca has indicated that Synergetic is okay on top of immersion wax (for long races) as it will gradually displace the wax as the wax breaks down. This option is great if you don’t want to worry about lubricant drying time (you can ride on Synergetic right after you put it on) and it is a more conservative approach since it is “approved” by Silca.

  • Alternatively, I’d consider starting with a Silca immersion waxed chain (I’d do the immersion myself), and then I’d use Mariposa Flower Power on top.

    • Why consider this approach? Next to immersion wax, drip waxes tend to have lower wear rates than traditional wet lubricants. This makes it more likely you can make it to the end of a long race without hitting the wear limit of your chain, and more likely your chain will be operating at lower friction/lower drag, compared to using traditional wet lubricant. The bonus is that it is much cleaner as well. Starting with an immersion waxed chain, you have a good base of wax fill, and you continue to fill the voids with the drip wax you add each night, keeping your chain protected and efficient. The reason for considering Flower Power rather than Silca’s drip wax, is that Silcas’s started drying time is 12 hours (too long for most racers), whereas Flower Power says their drip wax dries in 2-3 hours.

    • Why not use this approach? Mixing wax types (sunflower and paraffin) may not work ideally together… ZFC has expressed concern about this, whereas Mariposa has told me that adding sunflower wax on top of paraffin is fine. In some conditions, (cold and wet), dry times may be significantly longer than the stated 2-3 hours, and wax works best when completely dry before riding. Finally, drip waxes can separate when exposed to some conditions (hot and dry conditions in particular). To help avoid separation, keep the wax in the original bottle, and add a small (clean) nut or bolt inside the bottle to help shake up the mixture. Mariposa also suggested that you can add a bit of water to the bottle if you start seeing signs of it solidifying, and it will work normally once it is mixed up again. I have personally used Flower Power on top of Silca Immersion wax quite a bit for gravel and mountain bike riding, and it’s worked well for my use. That said, before you consider it for a big race, it is critical that you try it yourself in a variety of conditions, and have complete confidence in how it will perform in the race. Long rides, short breaks, rain, etc… you really want to make sure that this approach will work for your race plan. Note that I’d also take a small container with Silca Synergetic, so that if there was a problem, I’d have a backup option as well.

• For races that are 500 to 1000 miles such as Big Sky Spectaculaire or Trans Virginia, I’d simply do Silca Immersion and then take Synergetic if/when needed.

• For a long gravel race like Iowa Wind and Rock, Unbound XL or Gravel Worlds Long Voyage, I’d do the Silca Immersion Wax, and then carry Silca Synergetic, in case I need to top it off during the race.

• For general riding and not races, I use Silca Immersion Wax, and then I top it off with either Silca Drip Wax or Mariposa Flower Power. I no longer use any traditional lubricant… even Synergetic… for any of my training chains (TT, road, gravel, MTB or FB). I prematurely ate up a SRAM Eagle cassette riding my MTB on gravel… and after wasting over $300 on a new cassette… I moved away from lubricants that turn into lapping compounds in dust (although I’ll carry Synergetic for roadside lubrication). Basically, I do a full immersion every month or so, and every couple of rides I add a new layer of drip wax, to help keep it running clean and protected in the interim. Theoretically, the Flower Power should be a bit better on gravel, but with the frequency that I top it off, it’s generally not an issue for me. If I were doing a lot of really long gravel training rides, I would probably lean more towards Flower Power drip wax to make sure it lasted in harsher conditions.

A couple of last thoughts on chain lubrication:

1. Before adding any lubricant, you should always strip the factory grease off the chain. The grease isn’t a great lubricant itself, but more importantly, the high viscosity tends to trap dust and dirt, and it’s really poor for chain wear in bad conditions. It can also keep the lubricant you are adding from actually getting to the metal and doing it’s job. Wax will not stick to it, and even traditional wet lubricants may take several rides to penetrate fully into the chain… but even then may not remove all of the grease. There are products today (Silca Chain Stripper) that make this a relatively quick and easy job.

2. You should wipe down your chain after every ride, using a dry microfiber towel. Likely you will have surface dirt / dust on your chain that can work it’s way down into the pins over time. This is particularly important if you ride gravel, or mountain bikes. You can even make this worse by not wiping your chain first, and then washing your bike… the water will just push the dirt on the rollers into the chain, where it makes that great lapping compound to prematurely wear your chain. Always wipe down the chain… microfiber works so much better than traditional rags, due to the increased surface area.

3. Immersion wax can be easy and quick… much faster than most people realize. The key is to use an Instapot rather than a slow cooker. They melt wax much faster (10m vs an hour). It also helps to buy multiple chains, and do 3-4 chains at one time. You melt the wax once, then just immerse and agitate the first chain, hang it to dry and repeat. Then when you need another waxed chain, you’ve got it ready to go. Likewise, the combination of starting with immersion and then topping off with drip wax works really well for me… I typically go over a month between firing up the Instapot.

4. It’s not worth trying to clean a used chain that has had traditional wet lube on it, and then put wax on top. It just takes so long to try to all the grease out of the internals… multiple degreasers… even utrasonic cleaners with degreasers don’t bring them back fully. So, it’s best to start with new chains. Keep in mind that this means that if I use Synergetic to top off a chain in a race or on a long training ride… I’ll just use Synergetic going forward with that chain until it’s reached it’s wear limits.

5. Yes, I probably sound like a Silca fan-boy. They’ve just done a much better job of really digging into the engineering and design of lubricants than any other company and creating effective products for maintaining and lubricating your drivetrain. Note that Molten Speed Wax’s immersion wax has tested as good as Silca’s immersion wax (and a tiny bit cheaper to use), so it is another good option too (and my personal experience with MSW’s original version was good as well).

If there is interest in more of the “how to" with chains/wax (e.g. how do you strip factory grease, how do you do immersion wax, how do you apply drip wax, etc.), or even what chains I use and why… let me know… I can create another blog for that.