Ask Lewis - Dispelling The Rumours About Bike Lube 

Thanks so much for addressing my remark🙂. If you don't mind, I have some more :-) 1) You put the wax on when you realize that the chain needs wax, i.e. if you *return* from a ride. That way the chain is 100% prepared for the next ride. 2) Most of the wet lubes tested really bad at Zerofrictioncycling when it comes to chain wear. 3) The drive train stays very clean, no chain ring tattoos or black fingers when servicing. 4) The cleaning of a waxed chain is barely necessary at all and if necessary is done much quicker than a black grindy oiled chain. 5) Overall wax saves you quite a bit of money after initial investment. The lifetime of a new chains and cassette is also drastically extended. You can see SRAM XX1 chains that have done 14000 km and haven't met the first wear mark of the chain checker tool. Wet lubes: Under the rough testing conditions of ZFC only one wet lube (from SILCA) was able to get to the 6000km mark, the MUC OFFs didn't went beyond 2000km (that is, they did not even get to the wet condition testing, they were done after the dry contamination test). I mean done, dead, over, continuing using that chain WILL ruin the cassette and can ruin the chainrings. Wax: Practically ALL waxes (hot wax and drip on wax) got to the 6000 km mark with only few exceptions. For a number of hot waxes the chain wear was only about 50% after 6000 km (so you're good to go for another thousands of km before needing to replace the chain and you're likely to not need a new cassette). Note that the 6000 km test cycle from ZFC includes 1000 km of dry dust conditions, 1000 km of wet conditions and 1000 km of wet + contamination (muddy) conditions. I have to say that my weather profile for cycling does not look like that ... You should really try it ... (with the next round of replacement chain/cassette). If you think it's a business problem for your bike shop, I think it's not as you can earn the same amount/customer if you offer them to wax their chains at your shop for a few bucks (the bucks you would have earned selling a new chain for example, but I don't know how the margins really are). They likely invest the money they save for not having to buy a replacement chain for other bike-stuff at your shop when happily picking up their freshly hot-waxed chain (which is needed only about once to twice/year for the average cyclist if you use drip on wax intermittently). And finally a (not so) "fun-fact": 1 *drop* of many mineral oil based wet lubes can spoil 600 liters of drinking water. The waxes don't do anything to water. I know that under your hard skin you will have a soft spot for the environment that we like to explore using our bikes 🙂. Best regards, Benjamin

I feel from seeing the comments/feedback in the video that people are forgetting that these segments are targeted towards complete noobies, the type of people that don't realise you actually need to oil your chain and not those cyclists that know there are different types of lubricants you can use and what one gets you a longer lasting chain etc. Keep up the good work Lewis, trying to cover the knowledge gap for everyone is always an uphill battle but the more videos you put out trying to help the beginner cyclist the more people we can keep on bikes.

Guess we are all becoming more educated about chain lubing thanks to ZFC's testing. Recently got Silca's waxing system and it's great so far, got a corrosion resistant Wipperman 9SX chain on my road bike, hopefully it won't rust as I'll try to clean, dry and re-immerse it in wax when needed. Even waxing my commute bike's 7 speed nickel plated YBN chain.

That's a nice looking bike you have in the background 😁

so glad i watched this, I had heard of waxed chains at some point but never looked into it. I am going to have to try that now

why does this person not acknowledge that wax doesn't put shit ass fuck on your other components that you have to clean off...

If you are leaving it until you are about to ride to lube your chain that's actually pathetic. Give up cycling 👍