This post looks at the difference between wax based lube and oil based lube for your bicycle chain. As you will see, there isn’t an outright winner, rather you will know which you should choose depending on your type of riding.
I basically strip my drive-train from all lubricants and apply the oil lube and see how long it lasts, how silent and also how dirty it gets. And then I strip the drivetrain again and then do the exact same test for the wax based lube.
My Experience With Chain Lube
I have always used oil chain lube. I’ve experimented with many different brands and although there isn’t a great difference between them, I now use “Muc off” wet chain lube. Dry chain lube doesn’t really work well for me as I’m from Ireland where it rains a lot.
Recently however, I’ve been hearing more and more about the benefits of waxing your chain. But the thought of melting wax and hanging your chain up to dry and then removing the excess wax just didn’t sound like something that I could be bothered trying.
That was until I heard of Squirt wax lube. It’s a wax and water emulsion that you just add to your chain in the same way you would normal lube. Although you will have to go the extra mile when you replace your chain. New chains come with lubricant on them to prevent corrosion and this needs to be removed. To be honest I would normally remove this anyway but I probably wouldn’t go to the level of detail that you would need before applying the wax.
So, wax is meant to be way better than oil based lube. It’s supposed to last longer and attract less dirt, which in turn, should decrease the level of wear on your gears.
But does it? I’ve decided to put it to the test.
The Method
I’m going to use two brand new chains. After fitting the chain and applying the oil or wax, I’m going to ride them for as long as the lube will last, without reapplying.
The noise will be monitored as we progress through the mileage using a decibel app on my phone.
And we will see just how dirty the drivetrain is by the end of the test.
So, let’s get at it.
Step 1 – Cleaning the Drivetrain
This cleaning method was the exact same for both tests.
Remove cassette and chainring from the bike and degrease then, thoroughly.
Degrease rear derailleur and jockey wheels.
Clean off degreaser with brake cleaner.
Dunk the new chain into degreaser and then into brake cleaner to remove all contaminants.
Reassemble the cleaned drivetrain and apply your lube of choice.
The wax lube requires 2 coats. The second added after the first has dried.
I tested the oil based lube first but for the purposes of the post I will show the results side by side as I added on the miles. This will make it easier to compare.
The Test
So I recorded this images and noise at the end of every ride. These rides may not be exactly the same length. For example, the first image of my first ride with the oil based lube was 30km and my wax based lube was 40km. This is pretty close and as the miles add up it becomes less significant.
The Control
Below are images of the drivetrain at 0km. The sound was measured before any lube was attached. This will let us know how much the lube keeps our drivetrain quite.
As you can see its pretty clean. We’re getting about 51 decibels on a bare chain. Let’s see how much the difference is with lube applied.
0km
Visual
Sound
So that’s 40dB for the oil based lube and 41db for the wax. Not really a significant difference.
30km – 40km
Visual
As you can see that the oil based chain is already significantly dirtier than the wax based.
Sound
However, the waxed chain is already noisier with the oiled chain measuring 42dB and the waxed 47dB.
70km – 80km
Visual
With 70km on the oils chain it is noticeably dirtier again but the waxed chain is still clean.
Sound
The oiled chain a little noisier at 45dB however the waxed chain has got very noisy at 55dB.
180km – 190km
Visual
Ok, this is getting a bit ridiculous now. The waxed chain on the right is still clean and 180km. I’ve just run my hand alone the chain and it barely leaves a mark. As for the oiled chain I don’t think I need to run my hand along it for you to see the dirt.
It’s worth noting here that I can still feel the wax on the waxed chain. It just feels like you would imagine wax to feel like. Imagine rubbing your hand alone a candle.
Sound
The oiled chain has now gotten nearly as noisy as the waxed. The oiI based chain coming in at 52dB and the waxed seems to have settled at around 53dB.
260km
Visual
Sound
Not much chance here from either of the lubes.
330km – 350km
Visual
The oiled chain is quite dirty now with 350km on it but is still performing very well. You can see the barrels of the chain are still coated in lubricant.
The waxed chain has however reached the end of the road. Although it is still very clean it has just gotten too noisy on the road. The chain has actually started to squeak to a point were I would be embarrassed to ride with someone and I’m sure I’m doing damage to the drivetrain.
I’m going to continue the test just to see how long the oil based lube with last before it starts to squeak. To compare both chains for the same distance I decided to add another application to the waxed based chain. I didn’t clean the chain, I just added directly without striping it down again. This will show us how dirty the chain will get compared to the oil, albeit, with more applications.
Sound
The oiled chain has actually gotten a little quieter at 48dB while, as I already mentioned, the wax has got much louder and measuring 58dB.
As I had to reapply to the waxed chain there it not point in comparing them both against each other from here on. The oil based lube has won the noise and the longevity award.
But before we make our minds up, lets see this out and see how far the oiled chain can go and compare how they look at the end of it.
450km
Visual
The oil based lube on the left is looking pretty filthy while the waxed based lube still looks like new. Remember I still haven’t cleaned it. I just reapplied.
540km – 550km
Visual
And finally, the oil lube has started to dry up. It’s also began to become noticeably nosier. So I’m going to call it 550km on one application of lube is as far as it can get. Not bad but as you can see it is filthy and I wouldn’t normally let it get nearly this far.
Graphs
I’ve decided to put the above information into graphs to help us see how they perform at a glance.
You can see from above that the wax based lube gets nosier faster but then levels off for a while before reaching the end of its life as it gets near 300km.
This shows how quickly the oil based lube gets dirty and continues attracting dirt every ride. For the wax based lube its hard to see the different between rides.
Conclusion
So what does all this mean. Well it’s simple and completely personal. For me the winner is oil based lube. That because I’m into ultra cycling and I’m always going to pick longevity over anything else.
For others, having a clean chain where you are able to reapply frequently, the waxed based lube will be the way to go. Trust me, I would love to have a clean chain all the time but I reckon you should probably reapply every 150 – 200km and that’s just too much for me.
So, I’ll leave it up to you to pick the right lube for you. I hope this little experiment has helped you make that choice.