Squirt Performance Hot Wax
Hot Wax has long offered performance-oriented cyclists benefits in friction reduction, a fact that led Squirt Cycling Products® to develop a product without the usual break-in time drawbacks of traditional hot wax. The Squirt Performance Hot Wax uses a proprietary blend of various waxes along with a unique mixture of friction modifiers, high-pressure additives, and anti-wear additives to produce a hot wax that achieves 94% efficiency immediately upon use. This figure increases to 96% within 5 minutes and stabilises at 97% to 98% after 15 to 20 minutes. In comparison, other hot waxes provide only 70% to 74% efficiency initially, reaching only 94% after more than 30 minutes, and their optimum efficiency after 90 minutes or more.
“Our aim in developing Squirt Performance Hot Wax was not simply to bring another hot wax to market, but to create a product that truly serves the needs of team mechanics, workshop owners, and end users,” Danie van Wyk, head of marketing at Squirt Cycling Products®, said.
“One of the goals of the development team was to formulate the hot-wax blend to be biodegradable—a significant achievement in an industry where petrochemicals are typically the norm. That environmental breakthrough is as impressive as the performance gains that Squirt Performance Hot Wax delivers. It had to be efficient, durable, exceptionally clean, and boast an extremely low break-in period. It took us three years to get there, but we believe we’ve achieved exactly that”, Jacques Holtzhausen, the head of the development team, stated.
The proprietary formula allows Squirt Performance Hot Wax to outperform Squirt’s legendary drip application Chain Lube and other hot waxes. Functional waxes, with three different-sized Hexagon-Boron-Nitride particles in the nano- and micron-sized range, a proprietary friction-modifier and anti-wear additive blend, bond to the chain. This provides an exceptionally efficient lubricant that reaches its peak efficiency almost immediately. It then maintains this efficiency for far longer than traditional drip lubricants and some other hot waxes. In-house laboratory testing with the Zero-Friction Cycling Single-Application-Test protocol has confirmed that Squirt Performance Hot Wax achieves just over 6000 kilometres in Stage 1 before reaching the 20% wear allowance. The critical 20% wear in Stage 2 with dry contaminant (sand) was reached in just under 3000km, and Stage 3 with wet contaminant (sand + water) in 450km. Anecdotal, real-world testing by Squirt Cycling Products® ambassadors all over the world reveals that in ultra-marathon off-road racing, Squirt Performance Hot Wax is effective for at least 230 to 270 kilometres. In road racing conditions, that figure increases significantly to 800 to 1000 kilometres.
Squirt Cycling Products® has a strong tie to mountain and gravel bike racing, both through the interests of the company founders and through the events and athletes they support. Three-time Absa Cape Epic winner, Matt Beers, was among the first to trial a pre-production version in racing and training. “The new Squirt Performance Hot Wax has been awesome for chain durability and keeping the bike running smoothly,” the Specialized Off-Road star reported. Having pre-waxed chains for the 2025 Absa Cape Epic, Beers’ drivetrain was prepared for the extreme conditions of the Untamed African Mountain Bike Race. The four-time South African champion also used a waxed chain for the 2025 Unbound and at the recent Lauf Gravel Worlds (not to be confused with the UCI Gravel World Championships), where he triumphed, beating no less than Keegan Swenson into second and Unbound winner Cameron Jones into third. There, he tested the limits of its durability on the muddy gravel roads of Nebraska. Naturally, another advantage according to Beers is that “I have topped-up the chain with some normal Squirt Chain Lube when necessary, and it’s been great”.
It was essential to Squirt Cycling Products® that the hot wax formulation was both easy to apply and easy to clean. The packaging displays a simple step-by-step guide that riders can follow to apply the Squirt Performance Hot Wax. The process begins with preparing the chain by removing all previous lubricants or factory grease using a degreaser. The chain should then be suspended on a swishing wire to ensure easy handling. Thereafter, the chain and wax pellets are placed into a melting pot and heated to 93-95°C (200-203°F). Once the wax reaches the correct temperature, the pot must be switched off and the chain gently agitated in the molten wax for 3-5 minutes. This is adequate time for a thorough penetration of the hot wax, after which the chain is removed and hung to cool for approximately 20 minutes. Before installing the hot-waxed chain, it must be manually flexed by pinching it between the thumb and forefinger and pulling it through the whole length of the chain to ensure all links articulate freely.
To clean a Squirt Performance Hot Waxed chain, riders can simply immerse the chain in boiling water to which one 30ml sachet of Squirt Super-Concentrate Bike Cleaner is added and agitate the chain to melt and remove wax and dirt residue. After rinsing under clean water and towel drying, the chain is ready for a fresh application of Squirt Performance Hot Wax. When applied, the formulation remains remarkably clean to the touch, using additive technology to eliminate the buildup of dirt, which not only causes noise but also produces a grinding paste that accelerates chain wear. Further chain life enhancements are provided by the corrosion inhibitors in Squirt Performance Hot Wax, which reduce the risk of surface rust in adverse conditions.
