Your chain is probably due.

Why it exists

It started because everyone wanted to try waxing

A bunch of my friends got curious about waxed chains at roughly the same time. Great — except waxing only really works if you re-do it on schedule, and "how far have I ridden since the last dunk?" is not a thing anyone reliably remembers. We were all guessing, and mostly guessing late.

So WaxOn pulls your ride distance from Strava, adds it up per chain, and tells you where you stand. That's the whole trick.

And if you don't wax? Still yours. Plenty of us are perfectly happy with a bottle of drip lube, and the app treats that as a first-class setup, not an afterthought. Mark a chain as oiled and every counter, reminder and button changes to match — it even keeps a separate degrease counter, since oil is the thing that actually gunks up a drivetrain. Same app, different chemistry.

The good bit

Bike maintenance is a team sport

Share a bike with a code or a QR scan, and that person sees its chains, its history and its reminders. They can mark it waxed, log a degrease, tick off a brake-pad check, or flag "shifting's gone weird" for you to find later.

Handy if you have a mechanic, a partner who borrows the gravel bike, a teammate who actually enjoys this stuff, or a friend who owes you a favour. Everything they do shows up in the bike's history with their name on it, and you can revoke access whenever you like.

What it actually does

• Counts ride distance per chain, straight from Strava — or type it in by hand if a bike isn't linked.
• Tells you when wax or oil is due, before it's overdue.
• Keeps several chains per bike, so a rotation is easy: one on the bike, the rest on the shelf.
• Tracks the other stuff that creeps up on you — brake pads, tyre wear, tubeless sealant, battery checks, degreasing.
• Saves your waxes and lubes as presets, because a hot-melt wax and a wet lube do not last the same distance.
• Works in kilometres or miles. Everything is stored in km underneath, so sharing with someone who uses the other one just works.

Coming to a phone near you

WaxOn is in testing on Android and heading for both stores. If you want in on the test, or you've found something broken, say hello: [email protected].