Ceramic chainrings

[mountainman531]

I have noticed that Stronglight do some ceramic chainrings, has anyone tried these? Are there any problems with them and are the worth the difference in price? I presume that there is no problem mixing them with, say, Zicral chainrings on a triple chainset and that they fit a standard alloy spider.

[Valbrona]

Can't think why there would be a problem with them. The ceramic is only a coating - a bit like a frying pan - and after having used these I have never noticed any improvement in shifting over the regular Stronglight 7075 Zircal chainrings in black which I also use.

[TonyR]

Can't think why there would be a problem with them. The ceramic is only a coating - a bit like a frying pan - and after having used these I have never noticed any improvement in shifting over the regular Stronglight 7075 Zircal chainrings in black which I also use.

I would have thought that like ceramic coated rims, they would be very prone to cracking and pitting of the coating at the contact points but more so.

[Brucey]

I've not used these chainrings so I can't comment on these particularly.

However any thin coating will spall off if the contact stresses are high enough to deform the underlying material. I would say that this is exactly what happens with most aluminium chainrings, if not at first then after a little use.

If you use big chainrings and don't push that hard on the pedals (both of which lower the chain tension) then maybe there is a gain to be had. But if you do otherwise, and/or there are any signs of plastic deformation of teeth on your old chainrings, then I'd suggest that a hard ceramic coating won't be guaranteed to do that much good.

cheers

[mountainman531]

Thanks for the replies guys, I think I will stick with Zicral, sometimes you just have to pedal hard!