Sram Rival chain that will ONLY be used indoors and topped up with OIL based drip chain lube. Using a Quarq PM and Powermatch. Is there any reason to strip the chain? I’m thinking not because the grease they use is protective and any watts lost won’t be affected by the spider PM.
Am I missing anything?
I understand why people do it, but we went decades without stripping chains, so I doubt there is any significant downside. If there is a wattage difference, I don’t see where it would be bigger than the difference between using two different power meters.
I don’t do anything special for my indoor only bike. New chain goes on and when it needs lube I just do some drops of whatever is at hand. FWIW, wax inside can flake and make a mess so I avoid wax for the indoor bike.
You need to strip a chain for immersive waxing or to use a wax-based drip lube. You do not need to strip a chain that will only see oil-based lube. This applies indoors and outdoors.
Agreed…but, most manufacturers of lube - certainly the high end ones - specifically say to do so before applying their product in order to get the best performance.
In the long run it’ll be less and less a %age of what’s on the chain until it’s a non-issue though.
Having said all the above, I run a waxed chain on everything so I’d be stripping it anyway 
Personally I would wax, especially if the bike is indoors because it reduces the chance of getting grease everywhere
@DarthShivious brooming up flakes is a whole lot easier than removing grease stains
Thanks for your perspective. You are wrong. Full stop and good luck.
I just reapply wax based lube weekly. It cakes up after a few months and I clean it and keep going.
Does it really matter if you’re using it indoors only? Is it an indoor bike only or do you take it outside? If you take it in and out I could see doing the same thing you do to outside chain for consistency with the front rings (but does that even matter?)
I am just going to add that I lube my indoor/trainer bike chain every few weeks only. And have 2.5 years of indoor riding on the same chain… Everything seems to work just fine. One of these days I will take my bike off the trainer and put a new chain on…
One of these days I should swap it out I suppose, but does it really matter?
Well, yes. If your chain is past the wear allowance (and I’d put money on it being unless you rarely train inside) it’ll be sanding away your cassette and chainrings, multiplying the cost of getting a properly working drive train by about 10x if the whole lot needs replacing.