I've been battling with this issue since I started chain waxing 3 years ago. Some advice and warnings for winter chain waxers: 1) Consider gently wiping the excess wax from your chain as soon as you pull it out of the wax pot (a very quick single wipe). A thick layer of wax is going to be really difficult to break free in sub-freezing weather. It's possible you lose a bit of weather protection, but that's better than having your chain be frozen solid. 2) Watch out when going back-and-forth between warm and cold environments! I loosened a newly waxed chain over a broom handle in my cold garage, put the bike inside my warm car, then pulled it out for a sub-freezing gravel ride. Result: My chain was solid! I could not use the smallest 4 cogs because it would shift uncontrollably. It took about 40 miles (on a 60 mile ride) before the chain was running fully smoothly! 3) It takes a solid 20 minutes on the trainer before a freshly waxed chain is "safe" to ride in sub-freezing temperatures. And even then, it will be fairly stiff for the first part of your ride. The cold temperatures stiffen the wax again, but not to a degree that your bike will be unrideable or have major shifting problems. 4) Drip waxes are your friend in winter. ZFC's advice to use a hybrid approach is a good one. I try to use a drip wax (Silca in this case) 3 - 4 times between immersive waxings in the winter. If there's momentary warm weather, that's a good time to install a freshly waxed chain. The annoying part for drip wax is that I have to bring the bike *inside* so the chain and drip wax are both nice and warm first. 5) Full fenders make a big difference for days when the roads are wet. They keep your chain much drier, so you don't need to re-wax or re-apply drip lube as often. They are pretty critical for being able to use wax-based products on my daily commuter bike. 6) If you commute daily in truly wet weather (real rain) or slushy and salty snow, then maybe you'd be better off riding a cheap bike, with a cheap drivetrain, and grinding it into dust using wet lube. At some point, you just need to get to work -- and not spend your entire life maintaining waxed chains. OVERALL: Using chain wax in the winter is considerably more annoying, especially if your normal bike storage location is unheated (e.g. shed or unheated garage). But it's not impossible, depending on your situation. PS: Thanks for the video! My own tips, in bullet-point form, are above. It is painfully earned knowledge, unfortunately! At some point, I had to admit that a drip wax was going to be critical to making chain waxing less painful in the winter.

I use my bike for my daily commute, but its a fairly short ride. A couple or three miles either way. This is England and roads are often wet even if it's not raining. I run two immersive waxed chains but if I were to change chains every wet ride at this time of year I'd literally be changing and/or rewaxing daily some weeks. Not really practical. I don think a wipe down gets the chain dry enough. If that's all I do then some surface rust on the insides of plates and the parts of rollers between plates inevitably happens as wiping doesn't get down between links. Particularly where the chain sits in the chain rings or sprockets. Its unsightly but it does disappear after a little use. This may be a bad idea ... but I'll run it past you anyway. I've taken to giving the chain a quick flush with IPA post wet rides, using a small squirty bottle and a clean cloth. My thinking is that the IPA will flush out the water then evaporate. the wax isn't soluble in IPA so shouldn't be affected. It seems to work. I've had zero issues with surface rust since doing this. Of course it may be doing horrible unknown things to my chain for all I know but it doesn't seem to be. Seems to run fine. Thoughts?

I have been using Silca Super Secret exclusively on my Borealis Flume fat bike and it has been great almost a year in now. Lots of time in the snow and cold here in Colorado.

Mspeed breaking in manually just before the chain goes stiff has worked well for me. Just doing regular baths with old wax. In Feb I'll refresh the wax.

Definitely appreciate the wealth of information and how concise you are and to the point. Thanks!

It's great to see the progress of your data being compiled into a calculation. It would be great to see a personalised ability drop down box. I have run a new Ultegra chain and cassette since the beginning of the London Summer where I have accumulated 5000km using only Effetto Flower Power. I've been measuring the chain length every 1000km since the beginning with a combination of adjustable chain gauge and verniers. During 5000km of riding, it has gone from 0.25% stretch at new to 0.30% stretch now at 5000km. That is 10% of the chains life used in 5000km, with a projection of 20% at 10,000km. I ride in the Surrey hills, where 20% of the time it is wet or raining. Your online calculator calculates 0.98 chains used at 10,000km vs ‘my reality’ of 0.2. 0.98/0.2 equals a ~500% discrepancy (not an error). I put the difference down to power. Your tests are done at 250 watts, while I trundle along at 150 watts. The basic bearing life equation calculates life for different loads with (C/P)^n, where in this case, C is the reference power of 250 watts, and P is my average power of 150 watts, and n is the exponent relating to the type of bearing (n=3 for ball bearings and 3.3333 for roller bearings). Assuming a bike chain behaves like a roller bearing, you could try (250w/150w)^3.333 = 550%. This is slightly too high, it needs to be a 500% life extension for a reduce power of 150 watts. Trying n = 3.15, (250w/150w)^3.15 = 500%. That is about right. I’m surprised at how well it works. My total actual 'accumulated' costs for 0.2 chains at 10,000km will be £46 per 10,000 when using the onmi component costs and calculation method. Your test data has 0.98 chains used at 10,000km (for 250 watts) with an omni calc cost of £138 per 10,000km. If I averaged 400watts, (200w/400w)^3.15 = 23%, I would churn through 0.98/23% = 4.3 chains per 10,000km with a total cost of £559. If the omni calculator had a 'rider ability' drop down box with the calculation above, it would produce running cost ranges from £21 per 10000km for a 100watt rider to £559 for a 400 watt Tour de France Pro, for the exact same bike and lubricant. It would be a reasonably accurate personalised result. The reasonable exponent of 3.15 above may be a fluke, and only applies if your test is equivalent to my riding, which it won't be. You would need to sacrifice a chain by testing it at say 125watts, and then do the trial and error calc above to find the exponent. Doing a second chain at say 400 watts would make it even more accurate. The resulting exponent would be accurate for all lubricants. The simple bearing equation assumes zero contamination so the method above provides an estimate, which will provide a massive improvement in accuracy, over not using it. If you were to get an exponent of 2.0, the price range is £33 to £320 for extreme ends of ability. You won’t get an exponent that low.

Thanks for the cold weather guidance, Adam! 👊

you COULD do some cold weather testing in a walk-in freezer. many places in the US treat roads with salt and sand in the winter. during storms it mixes with the slush, and my bike is covered during commutes, and even after the roads are clear, it's put into the air enough that my eyes burn from it if I don't wear ski goggles, so it's definitely contaminating my chain, so that would be the type of winter contaminant you should test with.

Love the rex .I have waxs a dh and xc and 2bmx chains

"This one will be a short one" publishes a +50min video Gotta love it! 😍

I've not seen any long term negatives using Hot Melt in winter other than the drivetrain acts/sounds (but is not) kind of dry for the first few Km on a fresh waxing. You can mitigate it a little in the same way you can quiet down a fresh waxing if it bothers you by applying a small mount of drip wax like Banana Slip All weather (just one drop per roller like with wet lube, anymore is a waste) right before a ride. It won't do anything really because it hardly gets chance to soak into the chain but it shuts things up and makes it feel (probably psychological to be honest) more free until things "break in". I don't bother, I have enough confidence in the process at this point and knowing its working is enough.

I found that running a cold chain under a blow dryer warms it up enough to get good penetration.

Great info as always Adam thank you and cheers!!

I've been using Tri-flow Dry this summer, had the same issue with that as you described for wax in the cold, it just solidified on top of the chain, and I had to shake it constantly to even get it out of the bottle, so I've switched to the wet version. I go through much less with the wet, I like it better than the Finishline Dry, and MUC Off, and I've seen other people say the same on other lube testing videos but I don't see it on your list, certainly way better than White Lightning... even the WD-40 bicycle specific wet lube is better than that

I've found Gulf brand canning wax is softer than Silca hot wax for winter riding. The chains are noticeably less stiff after hot waxing making break in quick and easy even in sub freezing conditions and snow. For riding in snow with a fat bike wet lubes create a huge mess since they get wet and leak out. Wet conditions and wax have been zero issue since there generally aren't any contaminants in the snow to grind away the wax

I have been using normal candles was and food grade in a mix. In the cold months I use normal candle was as it seems to be softer.

I came across a Instagram post by Borshield t9, I forgot to mention this but the post reminded me. I see it should handle sub zero temps, I see a rider tested it in around - 17c. No idea about the wear or how good it stays on. I knew of this lube but not tried it. Ive heard great things over the years but don't remember what.

Looking forward to the shonky awards

MSpeedwax worked perfectly on a 2h -14°c ride today 🥶

thanks for this.

Thanks for the video! On a waxed chain, do you think that a thorough wipe with a gear wipe and drying with a microfiber towel would be enough to prevent rust after a wet ride? I imagine it probably depends on how wet of a ride it was.

Love your channel and content. Question: Is the Mariposa sunflower wax compatible with the hybrid approach that you mentioned in this video or does it not adhere to immersive waxes like MS Speedwax?

I live in Norway so it gets cold in the winter, low sub zero temps, bu ti e had issues with Smoove, in around - 7c it causes the chain to stiffen up so much it causes shifting issues. Iv ehad to stop using it in the winter. Do you know why it happens? Smoove claims it hsould work, but it clearly does not for me. I've degrease the chain and used only Smoove for a long time before the winter. Bike was stored indoors in room temperature in the living room. But Muc Off wet and Weldite wet Extreme work flawlessly even in - 10c.

Now I want to know about the opposite. How do wax chains handle extreme 40°C or hotter temps? Do they liquify a bit too mych to last? Or are there other issues that pop up?

If riding in wet, and following the hybrid method (immerse waxing after 500 km or so and drip on wax after each wet ride), do I still need to flush off the chain with boiling water before rewaxing? Thanks.

Minus 5 today, I took the car😂

Have you Adam checked out REX's Arctic lube? It has some additives against wet winter conditions and I have had good experience with it on customer's bikes who do not take care of the drivetrain :)

I run rock n roll gold for simplicity only in dry on road conditions and have gotten about 6500 - 7500 miles. By your calculator in mixed conditions you only get 4250 miles before you need a new chain. Is it different for on-road dry conditions? I rub off and re-lube basically every other ride but our roads also get heavy winter sand and junk here in Kansas and I avg 35 miles so early spring I get alot less on a chain than I do at the end of summer

Lol: You chose Muc-Off Hydrodynamic which is of the oil based type. This lubricant is a BAD choice 🚴🏼. Using Muc-Off Hydrodynamic for 10,000 kilometers in dry offroad conditions will cost you 1372.88€ on average 💵. That includes: 12.38 chains for 433.13€ total [35€/unit], 6.19 cassettes for 433.13€ total [70€/unit], 2.06 chainrings for 433.13€ total [210€/unit] Never ever! You should recalculate your calculator. Really!