Betty_Boopie

My point was never that waxing chains is the perfect end-all solution. I originally replied to a person that said they degreased their chain and only got about 2-3k miles before needing to replace it. From my experience that's due to stripping away the factory oil, and if you are degreasing anyways you are halfway to just waxing the chain.

If you want something to be dead set reliable modern group sets aren't going to be your friend, no matter what you are using on the chain. A single speed chain with geared hub is going to be more reliable than pretty much anything else on the bike.

Waxing has real benefits but it's not always worth it depending on where and how you ride. For instance, the dirt in my area is extremely dusty and destroyed my lubed MTB chain in about 2k miles. Waxing was a massive improvement and has already saved me from replacing $300 worth of chain and cassette.

It's your bike though, and different strokes work for different folks. I fight against cars, not fellow bikers.

A shout out to Austrian Audio (former AKG engineers), Focal, and Meze. Some of the best high-end audio companies for headphones, not that beyer is bad, I just don't personally enjoy their sound signature.

Also on the amp side of things Analogvibes is a German company producing diy tube compressors and equalizer kits for music production. On the pricey side for sure but the quality cannot be beat, they sound and feel absolutely beautiful.

I mean oil is oil, some are better as lubricants but all of them are going to reduce friction somewhat. When I rode fixies there were all sorts of weird home solutions being used in my group, but it didn't really matter because those chains are bomb proof.

I can't say for certain but if you tried the olive oil trick in a modern 10/11/12 speed drivetrain it would not last long. Not really because of an increase in friction but all of the dirt olive/vegetable/mineral oil attract. Lubricant is much thinner and doesn't 'hold' dirt to the same degree, especially inside the roller links.

Wax improves the lifespan not by dramatically reducing friction, but by making dirt ingress virtually zero. The actual power gains are maybe a few watts, and that's if you use special wax additives to further reduce friction.

Also shows a big difference in location between us. I only have like 2 weeks out of the year that I have to break out the indoor rollers because of rain.

Hope you stay safe though, I wish everyone could have the benefit of coastal desert weather.

Oh I'm sure you're doing a decent job and wax isn't a perfect solution for everyone. I'm just saying that one of the reasons you may only get 2k miles out of a chain is the degreaser takes away the factory oil. When I was on lube I was getting about 1% stretch per 1k miles, but it also depends a lot on the drivetrain and what kind of riding you do.

I would definitely consider wax though, especially if you move up into 10, 11, or 12 speed drivetrains. Everything is so damn expensive on them that wax is well worth the extra work, not just the chain but my cassettes look almost new still.

The roller links are what you want lubricated and protected, and wax stays in those places much better than liquid lubes. While some chunks will flake off there is a thin layer left behind, I ride near the ocean pretty frequently and had worse rust problems when I was using lube. Ofc whatever works for you is the best practice but wax has been very easy for me. I track my rides, after about 150 miles I re-wax the chain. I've never found that I have to check it more often, but I also ride steel frames so I don't ride in the rain anyways.

A quick tip on bike chains; if you are using lubricant you should never use heavy degreaser on the chain. The factory oil is the best lubricant and normal lubes don't penetrate between links enough.

However, if you are going to degrease you chains, you should use paraffin wax instead of lube. I have an 11 speed chain with 3000+ miles and it's only showing around 1% stretch. I don't even use fancy bike specific wax, just food grade gulf wax. Another plus is the whole drive train is dry; doesn't get your hands dirty if you need to remove a wheel, cassette, or derailleur.

Admittedly waxing the chain is a pain in the ass, but some of my chains are like $70 a pop so getting as much life from them is more important.

I mean Turkish coffee is sort of like what you described, but you use a super fine grind and a lot of the grounds stay in the pot. But if you like drinking mud then more powered to ya.

Different strokes for different folks, I was just poking fun that you're taking the approach of "everyone else is drinking weak coffee, I make the real stuff" kinda like Terry was certain that his ways were best even though alternatives already existed.

That sounds like the TempleOS equivalent of coffee methods

I kinda disagree, there is still a lot of waste even with the best bike brands. Hydraulic brakes are probably my biggest gripe, it's basically impossible to rebuild 4 piston calipers, and that's if they even have replacement pistons/seals to begin with. Hope and SRAM are the only two I know of that have pistons readily available but they are also overpriced to hell (it costs around $100 for 8 pistons, almost the same price as replacing the calipers entirely). Magura, TRP, and Shimano make everything in-house but they only supply parts to rebuild the levers, the calipers are basically just wear items.

Dropper posts, carbonfiber parts/frames, the 3 different hub "standards" being used, and non-standard sized bearings are all adding to the irrepairability of bicycles. And that's before you factor in that Shimano and SRAM are hell bent on using electronic shifting and shoving wireless bullshit on all their products.

Yes, a good bicycle is repairable and will last decades, it's just getting harder and harder to find new bikes that are good.

Pyrolysis sounds really cool in theory but in practice it's wasteful, produces lower quality fuel that is harder to refine, and contains a ton of benzene.

There's a dude on youtube making one of these in his backyard, basically a speed run to turn his house into a superfund site. I have no idea how people can see burnt plastic as a "green" alternative.

I feel like even calling this a ring is an insult to actual jewelry