Hot waxing the chain on a Specialized Turbo Levo Gen 3 — worth it?

[mikisep]

I'm on a turbo levo gen3.

should i hot wax my emtb chain?

@Greg Watts

 

[Greg Watts]

Short answer: yes, it's worth it — but only if you're honest about whether you'll keep up the routine. Wax isn't magic; it's a maintenance trade-off that pays off if you commit to it.

Why it's a good shout on your Gen 3 Levo
Your Gen 3 runs the Specialized 2.2 motor (around 90Nm), which is plenty of torque to chew through a chain under load. Wax keeps grit out of the rollers rather than grinding it in like oily lube does, so the drivetrain stays cleaner and lasts longer. @TheKaiser's experience is that hot melt wax or good wax drip lubes (Squirt, Smoove, Silca) can stretch drivetrain and cassette life 3x or more versus the worst oily lubes → view post. @BuckSaw reported a waxed chain still looking brand new after a couple hundred km → view post. That's the real-world payoff.

The honest catch
Hot waxing is faff. You're melting wax in a slow cooker, prepping a new chain by stripping all factory grease, then re-dipping every 300–500km. The way riders here make it painless is rotating three chains — @Red Peekay swaps every 400–500km and rewaxes a batch at a time → view post, and @TheKaiser does the same to minimise downtime → view post.

The shortcut that's nearly as good
Here's the bit that actually matters for most people: @TheKaiser's point is that with a high-end chain, drip wax alone (Squirt/Smoove) gets you most of the benefit — the 3-chain hot-melt routine gives diminishing returns once the chain's durable enough. So if the slow-cooker ritual sounds like a chore, just run a quality wax drip lube on a clean chain. You get most of the longevity and cleanliness without the kitchen archaeology.

My take for you
• Want maximum life and don't mind the ritual → hot melt, three chains in rotation.
• Want 80% of the benefit with 20% of the effort → drip wax (Squirt/Smoove), reapply every ride or two, keep the chain clean.

Either beats running a filthy oily chain into the cassette. And whatever you pick — prep matters: a new chain needs the factory grease stripped off completely or the wax won't key in.

What's your current lube situation, and roughly how many km a week are you putting in? That'll tell me which route actually suits you.

 

[Red Peekay]

Short answer: yes, it's worth it — but only if you're honest about whether you'll keep up the routine. Wax isn't magic; it's a maintenance trade-off that pays off if you commit to it.

Why it's a good shout on your Gen 3 Levo
Your Gen 3 runs the Specialized 2.2 motor (around 90Nm), which is plenty of torque to chew through a chain under load. Wax keeps grit out of the rollers rather than grinding it in like oily lube does, so the drivetrain stays cleaner and lasts longer. @TheKaiser's experience is that hot melt wax or good wax drip lubes (Squirt, Smoove, Silca) can stretch drivetrain and cassette life 3x or more versus the worst oily lubes → view post. @BuckSaw reported a waxed chain still looking brand new after a couple hundred km → view post. That's the real-world payoff.

The honest catch
Hot waxing is faff. You're melting wax in a slow cooker, prepping a new chain by stripping all factory grease, then re-dipping every 300–500km. The way riders here make it painless is rotating three chains — @Red Peekay swaps every 400–500km and rewaxes a batch at a time → view post, and @TheKaiser does the same to minimise downtime → view post.

The shortcut that's nearly as good
Here's the bit that actually matters for most people: @TheKaiser's point is that with a high-end chain, drip wax alone (Squirt/Smoove) gets you most of the benefit — the 3-chain hot-melt routine gives diminishing returns once the chain's durable enough. So if the slow-cooker ritual sounds like a chore, just run a quality wax drip lube on a clean chain. You get most of the longevity and cleanliness without the kitchen archaeology.

My take for you
• Want maximum life and don't mind the ritual → hot melt, three chains in rotation.
• Want 80% of the benefit with 20% of the effort → drip wax (Squirt/Smoove), reapply every ride or two, keep the chain clean.

Either beats running a filthy oily chain into the cassette. And whatever you pick — prep matters: a new chain needs the factory grease stripped off completely or the wax won't key in.

What's your current lube situation, and roughly how many km a week are you putting in? That'll tell me which route actually suits you.

Mikisep, as Rob alludes to, the choice to wax (cleaning chains, slow cookers, off shelf wax or your own secret sauce etc) vs run the chain through one of those plastic contraptions with brushes using a chain cleaner and then drip some type of lube (which is significantly faster and simpler) comes down to a personal philosophy. Are you a tinkerer, do you like ritual and mucking around. Or are you, nah too much work, just wanna ride.

I'm the wake up, turn the espresso machine on, grind my beans, weigh the output, stir the ground coffee in the portafilter with the needles, distribute, tamp and then run through the machine kinda guy. I love the ritual, spent hours researching coffee making, tools etc. Accumulated lots of stuff. Love it. Paint the house... stuff that. Work extra time, earn more cash and pay someone.

Same with my chain waxing. Enjoy the ritual, doing my research, working out my own wax formulae etc. Others find this tedious.

The other major consideration on whether to wax or not is that wax is not great in wet conditions. If you're doing a lot of riding in the wet and mud, then you're going to have to clean and rewax the chain a lot. In this case you're better off using a lube or pour on waxy lube.

I run a fat ebike in Canada (vs my trail ebike here Downunder) and don't wax in Canada as I'm in the snow and the chain often gets wet. However there is no dirt or mud (in a normal season that is...) so there is less abrasion. I just lube every 7th or 8th ride and use a Rota Luber to apply the lube RotaLuber. That way I don't have tons of lube going everywhere. Clean the chain once at the end of the season with one of those all in one cleaning systems something like Bio Chain Doc (can't remember the one I use in Canada at the mo).

So it all comes down to personal preference and under what conditions you ride. Good luck on the direction you take.

 

[Greg Watts]

Mikisep, as Rob alludes to, the choice to wax (cleaning chains, slow cookers, off shelf wax or your own secret sauce etc) vs run the chain through one of those plastic contraptions with brushes using a chain cleaner and then drip some type of lube (which is significantly faster and simpler) comes do...

That's the most useful thing in this whole thread, frankly - the conditions point. Hot wax is brilliant in the dry and dusty (which is exactly what the Peak's serving up right now), and a faff bordering on pointless in sustained wet and mud, where you'll be stripping and re-dipping so often you'll wonder why you bothered. Your two-climate split - wax where it's dry and abrasive, lube where it's wet - is the right instinct regardless of which bike's where.

And the coffee analogy nails the real decision better than any durability chart. It's not "which is technically best", it's "which kind of person are you". Tinkerer who enjoys the ritual → wax. "Nah, just wanna ride" → clean and drip lube. Both are correct answers; the wrong move is picking the ritual and then resenting it into a half-stripped chain.

One thing worth flagging on the RotaLuber: their "e-bikes wear drivetrains 3x faster" line is broadly fair - the extra torque does grind chains harder - but it's also marketing for a tool that applies lube, not wax. So it's a fine bit of kit for the drip-lube camp, but it doesn't really enter the hot-wax conversation at all. Different philosophy, as you'd put it.

For @mikisep specifically: on a Gen 3 Levo ridden through a UK summer, you're in prime wax territory right now. The honest catch is the British autumn always turns up eventually, and that's when the wet-weather faff @Red Peekay's describing kicks in - so a lot of people here run wax through the dry months and switch to a waxy drip lube (Squirt'll do both jobs) when the trails turn to soup. Best of both, minimal kitchen archaeology.

@G-Sport's post is worth a read too - same two-chain, full-strip-then-wax routine, with the after-a-muddy-ride wash-and-dry step that keeps it viable when it's not bone dry.

 

[Red Peekay]

One thing worth flagging on the RotaLuber: their "e-bikes wear drivetrains 3x faster" line is broadly fair - the extra torque does grind chains harder - but it's also marketing for a tool that applies lube, not wax. So it's a fine bit of kit for the drip-lube camp, but it doesn't really enter the hot-wax conversation at all. Different philosophy, as you'd put it.

Thanks Rob, the only reason I bought the Rotaluber is that it makes applying the lube a lot easier. Yeah, it's pricy for what you get, but it's simple. I'm not into 3D printing so not in a position to make my own device. I really didn't dive into all their marketing stuff. It was more a case of... "hmm, looks easy to use, won't be pouring half a bottle of lube all over the floor... yeah I'm in".

 

[Greg Watts]

Thanks Rob, the only reason I bought the Rotaluber is that it makes applying the lube a lot easier. Yeah, it's pricy for what you get, but it's simple. I'm not into 3D printing so not in a position to make my own device. I really didn't dive into all their marketing stuff. It was more a case of... "...

Fair enough - that's a completely reasonable reason to buy a tool. "Does what it says, won't make a mess" is a solid purchasing criterion that doesn't require reading a single line of marketing copy.

I may have been slightly uncharitable treating it as a marketing vehicle when you just wanted something that wouldn't turn your chain lube application into a Jackson Pollock. Point taken, @Red Peekay.