Chain and Cogs: Don’t wait too long!

[KLizotte]

@mstone 61523 wrote:

that is the cleanest (scariest?) drive train I have ever seen.

+1

[NicDiesel]

Just bumping this to say that if you’re replacing a chain with over 4,000 miles on it go ahead and replace your cassette as well, especially if said cassette is a 12-36 9-speed slow rider. Just installed a new 11-25 cassette (chain has less than 500 miles on it) and it’s like riding a totally different bike.

[Harry Meatmotor]

just thought i’d share a few thoughts on this topic:

First, I’d recommend using a different chain checker than what seems popular around here. The Rohloff chain checker is admittedly a bit pricey, but is much more trustworthy (http://www.amazon.com/Rohloff-Caliber-2-Chain-Indicator/dp/B001GSOHZY). The Park CC-2 can develop wear at the pivot and will give bad readings (so if you see your favorite shop monkey using it, ask them to check a brand new chain on a bike down on the sales floor, and see what the reading is – my bet is that it’ll be at least “25” on the CC-2). Park’s old stamped steel (12″ long) chain checker is even more horrid.

Second, the only time you should replace both chain and cassette is when the chain has stretched enough to wear out both the shift ramps and the valleys between the teeth. When a chain “stretches” the roller’s inner bushing surface wears on the pin, causing the effective distance from inner roller to inner roller to increase. The cassette will wear, too, but only if the chain is badly stretched. Also, most riders have a “favorite gear” (on shifty-gear bikes) and will usually wear out one or two cogs in a cassette more than others. if the cassette has one or two gears worn out, putting a new chain on will probably shift okay in the stand, but hesitate during shifting in your favorite gears out on the trail.

One quick and dirty way to tell if a chain is worn (usually to the point that the cassette/freewheel needs replacing, too) is, when the chain is dry (cause you haven’t been lubing it), whack the chain with the handle of a screwdriver. if the chain rattles, it’s worn out.

Third, the easiest way to tell if your chainrings are worn out is to grab the chain at the 3 o’clock position on the chainring and pull it towards the front of the bike. if you can expose an entire tooth of the chainring, it’s time to replace the chain, cassette and chainrings. you can try to do piece-meal replacements at that point, but you’re only going to wear out a new chain, or chain and cassette, even faster. Running a new chain on a worn out chainring is the fastest way to kill a chain.

I tend to live by the rule: 3 chains per cassette, 2 cassettes per set of chainrings – YMMV

[jnva]

15k miles on these. I need to replace. Chain keeps jumping. [ATTACH]5036[/ATTACH]

[brendan]

@jnva 80728 wrote:

15k miles on these. I need to replace. Chain keeps jumping. [ATTACH]5036[/ATTACH]

I’d be jumping too with so many sharks in the water.

B

[Dickie]

So, it’s chain replacement time again for all my bikes. The Campagnolo bikes are no brainers as I have replaced these chains a number of times and I always use the same Campy product, but this is the first time replacing the chain on my Cannondale cross bike. So many Shimano choices… any suggestions? I’m running 10sp Tiagara (12-28) and 46/36t chainrings. Cheers.

[Drewdane]

@DaveK 55427 wrote:

I have the same on my 1×9 MTB and I’ve been able to jam it up a couple of times. Been meaning to go to bash guards myself.

When I transitioned my old beater to 1×9, I just removed the cable from the front derailleur and fiddled with the limit screws to center it over the chainring. I might have had to adjust its position on the downtube, but I don’t recall.

Not fancy, but it was cheap and it worked.

[mstone]

@Dickie 88835 wrote:

So, it’s chain replacement time again for all my bikes. The Campagnolo bikes are no brainers as I have replaced these chains a number of times and I always use the same Campy product, but this is the first time replacing the chain on my Cannondale cross bike. So many Shimano choices… any suggestions? I’m running 10sp Tiagara (12-28) and 46/36t chainrings. Cheers.

Dial a pricepoint. I’d get the cheapest 10 speed chain at the store. The canonical answer is CN-4601. http://productinfo.shimano.com/lineupchart.html#series=tiagra&speed=2×10 You may inexplicably find other 10 speed chains (even higher-end models) cheaper, depending on the vagaries of sales.

[hozn]

@Drewdane 88840 wrote:

When I transitioned my old beater to 1×9, I just removed the cable from the front derailleur and fiddled with the limit screws to center it over the chainring. I might have had to adjust its position on the downtube, but I don’t recall.

Not fancy, but it was cheap and it worked.

If/when I go geared again on my MTB, I will use a narrow/wide ring up front. Apparently those work great even w/o clutch rear derailleurs. So hopefully no bashguard or chain catcher/guide needed.

[hozn]

I was thinking about this thread recently because I feel I must surely be doing something wrong.

I am changing my chains when wear indicator reads 0.5-0.75 (using CC-2, so maybe it’s over-reading as HM mentioned above), that is about 1500-1700 miles per chain. I am only getting 2-3 chains per cassette before things start skipping in the middle / high-use cogs. E.g. I just discarded my cassette with only 3200 miles on it. This seems ridiculous. Even when I get 3 chains to the cassette that’s still < 5k miles. I know I could get longer mileage than that if I just stuck with one chain, but I do swap my wheelset and so I don't want a super worn chain quickly wearing out my cx wheelset cassette. I’m using:
– SRAM PG1050 cassettes. (And I can’t use Shimano because their stupid spline design chews up my freehub bodies.)
– KMC 10.93 chains (the cheap ones).

Maybe I would get better mileage from higher-end chain or cassettes?

[Harry Meatmotor]

@hozn 88851 wrote:

Maybe I would get better mileage from higher-end chain or cassettes?

what shape are your chainrings in? nothing will wear out a new chain and cassette faster than using it on a worn set of chain rings.

as far as brands and specific component groups, my recomendation for regular 10sp road is shim 105 for cassettes and whatever is cheap for chains.

I’m generally not a big fan of SRAM road cassettes, durability-wise, either.

[hozn]

@Harry Meatmotor 88856 wrote:

what shape are your chainrings in? nothing will wear out a new chain and cassette faster than using it on a worn set of chain rings.

as far as brands and specific component groups, my recomendation for regular 10sp road is shim 105 for cassettes and whatever is cheap for chains.

I’m generally not a big fan of SRAM road cassettes, durability-wise, either.

Good question about the chain rings. There’s no skipping, but they do have 11k miles on them. Maybe time for new ones? (These are Shimano rings — whatever comes on the CX50 crankset.) I figured worn rings would let me know with skipping, but maybe they’re letting me know by trashing my chains. (But going 1500-2000 miles on a chain before it gets to 0.75 wear seems about what I had been getting before?)

I would be happy to use 105 cassettes but using those meant I had to replace my freehub body after a few cassettes. Maybe they’ve improved the design so the freehub contacts more than 3 splines?

[Harry Meatmotor]

@hozn 88857 wrote:

Good question about the chain rings. There’s no skipping, but they do have 11k miles on them. Maybe time for new ones? (These are Shimano rings — whatever comes on the CX50 crankset.) I figured worn rings would let me know with skipping, but maybe they’re letting me know by trashing my chains. (But going 1500-2000 miles on a chain before it gets to 0.75 wear seems about what I had been getting before?)

I would be happy to use 105 cassettes but using those meant I had to replace my freehub body after a few cassettes. Maybe they’ve improved the design so the freehub contacts more than 3 splines?

Try the “pull the chain from the chainring @ 3 o’clock position” thing and you’re probably gonna be able to expose a full tooth.

The 5700 stuff is basically the same as the 6700 ultegra, except for the amount of machine work to lighten the cogs and the finish on the cogs. Shimano did a bang-up job with the 5700 105 gruppo. The bottom 3 cogs are on an aluminum carrier and the rest of the cogs definitely contact more than 3 splines.

One little trick for worn/notched freehub bodies is to take a file to the largest spline on the freehub body and file it down (decreasing the length of the spline around the freehub body by about 1 mm), enough to squeeze a trimmed down spoke between the cassette (male) spline and the freehub (male) spline. takes some fooling around, but it’s a good fix for freehub bodies that are difficult to track down replacements for.

[ronwalf]

@hozn 88851 wrote:

I am only getting 2-3 chains per cassette before things start skipping in the middle / high-use cogs. E.g. I just discarded my cassette with only 3200 miles on it.

Is this a 10-speed thing? I got 4 chains on my last 9-spd cassette, but the last one took quite a while to settle (it wasn’t skipping, but you could hear it shift on the teeth for the first 1k miles). I got 7k out of the cassette, but the last chain was really stretching it. 10-speed cassettes and chains are narrower, and so there’s a good chance the force on the chain is distributed in a smaller area, increasing the rate of wear.

[hozn]

Yeah, this is 10-speed. I will try the Shimano cassettes again. I just learned of the clip kit that American Classic sells to fix the spline issue with 5600/6600 cassettes, so might see if I can find some of those.

And more immediately, it is probably time to replace my rings to help my chains last longer. I may also try changing to just wearing out the chains and cassettes together. My fear is that an old chain will skip on a new cassette but maybe that isn’t what happens anyway (?)

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