If you ride a bike and lubricate your drivetrain with typical lubricants, you will eventually get a dreaded chainring tattoo.  You just touch the chainring with your calf, and the lubricant instantly transfers to give you the oily “tattoo”.

I have been reading quite a bit about drivetrain lubrication recently.  There is actually quite a bit published about it, and people can get fanatical about the benefits of reduced friction from the right choice of lubricant. It’s another one of those “micro gains”, that can add up to improved results.

Several articles have convinced me to try ‘waxing’ my chain.  Here the lubricant is a solid wax and not an oil or wax based emulsion.  It’s quite a process to clean the chain in order to apply the wax, but once applied correctly, the performance improvement from reduced friction is measurably better.

Even if the performance isn’t better however, solid wax lubrication has other benefits.  You don’t get ‘chainring tattoos’ when your calf touches the drivetrain.  You don’t get oily hands, if you drop your chain mid-ride and have to put it back on.  You don’t get oily hands, if you need to remove your back wheel to repair a flat.

Eliminating all those oily issues and a waxed chain might help me go ever so slightly faster … I’m sold.  Amazon orders have been placed !!