I was a bit shocked when the not very LBS told me my chain was worn out in just 950km. I’ve cleaned and lubed it regularly as I’m aware of the strain a mid-motor e-bike puts on regular bicycle drivetrain components, especially a super slim 12-speed chain. Along with neglect, it’s said excess sticky lube attracts grit which prematurely wears chains. I’ve been using Muc-Off dry lube; probably too much – another mistake.
Now I read of cooking a oil-free chain in hot wax with an added dash of PTFE powder. I went through a short phase of doing that on my Triumph as a teenager before sealed, o-ring chains (and PTFE and everything else) came along. Short, because on the first ride it all just warmed up and flung off all over the back wheel and unfortunate bystanders.
Hopefully, even an e-bike can’t manage that and, determined to make the new 12-speed chain last and so extend the life of the expensive cassette, I thought I’d give it a go and assembled the ingredients (below).
Breaking the connecting ‘Missing Link’ on my bike’s near-new KMC chain flummoxed me without the right tool I’d seen in the shop, until this nifty YouTube vid showed how easy it was with some regular pliers (below). To get that pinching slack you need to get the chain on the smallest cog then unhook it from the front chain ring. Pliers snick and it breaks apart. Easy.
I dropped the oiled chain in a bottle of white spirit and gave it a shake, wiped it down and left it out in the hot sun. While it dried, I shortened a brand new KMC chain to my bike’s length, flushed the ‘delivery oil’ off that, then let it dry too.
I tipped 250g of wax pellets into an old frying pan, added the two cleaned chains and once warmed, sprinkled in the PTFE powder, then whisked it all about so the molten wax mixture got right into the pins. While it simmered and smoked, I cleaned off any old lube from the bike’s drivetrain. I lifted the hot chains out, unknotted them and hung them out to dry.
Once a newly waxed chain cools off it goes stiff so you need to roll it across a bar to free up the links. That done, and once threaded through the rear mech, I thought the Missing Link™ might be tricky to lock back on with the added wax coating. But it wasn’t; pull the joined up chain apart by hand and it clicks together. Result: a nicely waxed chain that’ll hopefully stay that way for a while. And when it doesn’t I have a mini bottle of KMC Go chain wax fluid to relube it on rides, and a spare waxed chain ready to go on the shelf.
And another benefit of a waxed chain is that it’s far less messy to handle than a dirty oiled one when you’re removing the rear wheel.
Gorilla brake pads
From day one my Tero X5’s front brake made an annoying graunching noise when applied, like the pads were worn out. They weren’t but in wet Wales both brakes screeched annoyingly, frightening the horses for miles around.
Removing and roughing up the pads might have fixed that. Instead, I bought some Gorilla pads (£12 a pair) and on the front it’s like having a brand new and fully bled brake. Even though there’s less than a mil of wear on the original pads (below left), somehow fitting the Gorillas took over an inch the play out of the lever, so that now with 5mm of movement it’s biting hard. Maybe they won’t last half as long, and I did notice screeching coming down one hill. We’ll see if that goes away.
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