Price of Chains

[thelawnet]

There seems to be a difference between 'OEM Shimano' and 'OEM KMC' unless by 'OEM Shimano' you mean only 'OEM Shimano chains made by KMC'. I buy 'OEM KMC' 10-speed chains (with quicklinks) and they are packaged in cardboard box, the printing of which has nothing to do with KMC:



However they are genuine KMC chains.

The official KMC packaging is a plastic box, and this tends to be a little more expensive than OEM chains in simple packaging



Anyway I daresay Shimano chain packaging varies regionally, but it's unlikely to reference 15+ year-old groupsets.

There is nothing particularly wrong with a cheap generic chain, other than the fact it's rubbish: at least it's not purporting to be something else, it's rubbish but honest rubbish. I do feel that the 'LBS' is a bit of an anachronism, in that people seem to think they can go in and get their bike replaced with, say, a 32mm high-performance gravel tyre to replace their original racing 28mm model, and that the LBS will have the perfect product in stock, rather than just fitting whatever might be available for sale, which might be 'el cheap & draggy'.

Where I am, it is difficult to find, say, a third-party laptop charger, you can only buy fake ones or possibly real ones. The fake ones are poorly built, obviously, so one would rather they just said 'ZJ' on them or something, and not Samsung or Sony or whatever.

My guess is no genuine HG73 or HG73B has been produced for quite a number of years. The HG73B was in the 2015-16 catalog, but it's probably older than that.

http://biketrade97.hu/assets/media/files/KMC_2016.pdf

[NUKe]

When I started this thread I wasn't looking for cheap chains, just commenting on the fact that they seem to have more than doubled in price in the last 12 months. I will still buy SRAM 850 as the quality level is good, but as I need 5 chains to make up 2, for the recumbent its a significant price hike of about £25 for me, if other components follow the pattern, then the Cycling inflation is through the roof.

[Brucey]

as I mentioned upthread CN-HG73B is listed in the 2020 KMC OE catalogue.

cheers

[thelawnet]

as I mentioned upthread CN-HG73B is listed in the 2020 KMC OE catalogue.

cheers

Yes that is understood, but the point was it has been in the catalog for a number of years, so it is not necessarily obvious that they are still making it.

[alexnharvey]

Do Shimano make chains too or are they all outsourced? What about the rest of the stuff, how much is in-house?

[thelawnet]

Do Shimano make chains too or are they all outsourced? What about the rest of the stuff, how much is in-house?

Made-in-Japan Shimano chains are made by Izumi.

I believe as such 9 speed and below is made by KMC, everything else by Izumi. Though in the past the 9 speed was made by Izumi also. KMC are the cheaper outsourcer

[The utility cyclist]

There are entire categories of mass fraud producing millions of counterfeit chains, derailleurs, etc., some of which don't even exist as real products

Certainly 8-speed, single-speed etc. would not be immune.

China is such a den of IP theft that in certain markets (not the UK), it can be difficult to find products which are NOT counterfeit.

Here's some fake Shimano HG73's currently on sale on popular cybercrime website, Ebay.co.uk:

Dreadful rubbish, unbranded/cheap chains are one thing, but these fakes are awful rubbish and will wear out quickly.

Here's a fraud facilitated by Amazon

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Zerone-Mountai ... 07B628F51/

'prime' delivery

A few years ago tesco were selling some copycat hyperglide chains, they looked extremely similar even close up, the imprinted name on the chain itself I can't quite remember but it was only slightly dissimilar in name to the 'hyperglide' branding. They were selling them for £4IIRC, didn't buy one because I thought it would just be rubbish but was surprised to see them in a Tesco store.

[The utility cyclist]

When I started this thread I wasn't looking for cheap chains, just commenting on the fact that they seem to have more than doubled in price in the last 12 months. I will still buy SRAM 850 as the quality level is good, but as I need 5 chains to make up 2, for the recumbent its a significant price hike of about £25 for me, if other components follow the pattern, then the Cycling inflation is through the roof.

The price has gone up a lot because as I mentioned inflation has not being applied to many (any) of the 7/8 speed chains for years and prices have remained static despite the falling £. To save yourself money buy the Shimano IG51, they're £7 a pop, thus compared to the £12 a chain of the ones you've been buying means there's no price increase.

[Brucey]

Do Shimano make chains too or are they all outsourced? What about the rest of the stuff, how much is in-house?

Made-in-Japan Shimano chains are made by Izumi.

I believe as such 9 speed and below is made by KMC, everything else by Izumi. Though in the past the 9 speed was made by Izumi also. KMC are the cheaper outsourcer

I just took a look at Izumi's website and they only market a very limited selection of derailleur chains under their own brand;

https://www.izumichain.com/derailleur

6/7s only, which suggests that if they do make 8s and 9s chains, they make them for someone else. Their website mentions making chains for both Shimano and Tsubakimoto, but no details there.

BTW they mention patenting a flush riveted chain in 1981 and claim it as "the basis for all modern derailleur chains". Today, their 7s chain looks a lot (to me) like Sedisport chain did in, er, 1978.

cheers

[thelawnet]

Do Shimano make chains too or are they all outsourced? What about the rest of the stuff, how much is in-house?

Made-in-Japan Shimano chains are made by Izumi.

I believe as such 9 speed and below is made by KMC, everything else by Izumi. Though in the past the 9 speed was made by Izumi also. KMC are the cheaper outsourcer

I just took a look at Izumi's website and they only market a very limited selection of derailleur chains under their own brand;

https://www.izumichain.com/derailleur

6/7s only, which suggests that if they do make 8s and 9s chains, they make them for someone else. Their website mentions making chains for both Shimano and Tsubakimoto, but no details there.

BTW they mention patenting a flush riveted chain in 1981 and claim it as "the basis for all modern derailleur chains". Today, their 7s chain looks a lot (to me) like Sedisport chain did in, er, 1978.

cheers

I think you might be misunderstanding the nature of Izumi's business. Like many other businesses they are primarily an OEM, making higher end products for Shimano. They sell low-end products under their own name, and they made ALL of the new Shimano chain technologies since 1976, Uniglide, Narrow, Hyperglide, 9-speed, 10-speed, 11-speed, 12-speed, every last one. http://izumichain.co.jp/history_e.html

So they most certainly had full responsibility with Shimano for the design and production of their 9-speed chain in 1995, but as they & Shimano have since moved on to 10, 11 and 12-speed, it might well be that the 6, 7, 8, and 9-speed is now the sole manufacturing responsibility of KMC, which doesn't necessarily mean KMC make worse chains, but perhaps Shimano prefers a Japanese factory for its high-end releases.

[youtube]JaBlkrbYZlI[/youtube]

Clearly Izumi chooses not to cannibalize its OEM work by selling anything vaguely recent under its own name. Whether or not a Sedisport chain shifted better than an Izumi-Shimano one in 1978 doesn't seem particularly relevant at this point.

https://www.bicycleretailer.com/industr ... arket-push

While the partnership with USA Cycling spans all disciplines, Izumi does not currently offer its chains for drivetrains with more than 8 cassette cogs. In the aftermarket, the company offers replacement chains for 6-, 7- and 8-speed derailleur drivetrains.

It also offers chains for singlespeed, internal gear bikes, fixies, BMX, and track, including the top-end Izumi-V model, used by pros on the track and BMX and certified by the Japanese Keirin Association. These are the chains most likely to be used by National Team racers.

While not the cheapest chains in the market, Zell said the company is promoting its high-quality Japanese manufacturing, which, he said, makes Izumi chains the best replacements available for vintage high-end groups with less than 9-speed cassettes.

[Brucey]

I think you might be misunderstanding the nature of Izumi's business.

I don't think so. I said 'if they do make 8 and 9s chains, they make them for someone else'. And it seems you don't know either. [It certainly doesn't follow that they will stop making all older chain designs when the next skinny chain comes out; if they did, they wouldn't bother selling 6s and 7s chains.]

I have used Izumi chains on and off for decades (often in shimano guise) and they don't always make a superior chain. For example BITD the shimano uniglide sprockets and uniglide (Izumi) chain shifted well but it was noisy and lasted about half as long as some other chains I used around that time.

I think it is rather pompous and inaccurate of Izumi to claim that their 1981 chain is 'the basis for all modern bicycle chains'; it may be true for them but outside of that I would say that mantle belongs to Sedis, about three years earlier.

cheers

[thelawnet]

I think you might be misunderstanding the nature of Izumi's business.

I don't think so. I said 'if they do make 8 and 9s chains, they make them for someone else'. And it seems you don't know either. [It certainly doesn't follow that they will stop making all older chain designs when the next skinny chain comes out; if they did, they wouldn't bother selling 6s and 7s chains.]

No, not at all. The point was that at some point Shimano farms out the cheaper chains to KMC, probably with a new model number, and that whatever Izumi have on their website as a product for sale isn't particularly indicative of what they are making, as they would appear to have some sort of agreement with Shimano not to sell anything competing with the chains they make for Shimano.

Looking at the current Shimano catalog there are some 19 chains listed, of which 4 are made by KMC. This does leave the CN-E6070-9 (e-bike chain, which Izumi boast about making for Shimano on their website) and CN-HG93 as Izumi 9-speed chains.

[Brucey]

er, that was pretty much my point, wasn't it?

FWIW there is a pretty good write-up about sedisport chains here

https://midlifecycling.blogspot.com/2015/02/a-steady-chain-of-events-in-cycling.html#:~:text=Sedis%20chains%20were%20popular%20mainly%20for%20the%20same,iconic%20product%20Sedis%20ever%20produced%3A%20the%20Sedisport%20chain.

cheers

[NUKe]

When I started this thread I wasn't looking for cheap chains, just commenting on the fact that they seem to have more than doubled in price in the last 12 months. I will still buy SRAM 850 as the quality level is good, but as I need 5 chains to make up 2, for the recumbent its a significant price hike of about £25 for me, if other components follow the pattern, then the Cycling inflation is through the roof.

The price has gone up a lot because as I mentioned inflation has not being applied to many (any) of the 7/8 speed chains for years and prices have remained static despite the falling £. To save yourself money buy the Shimano IG51, they're £7 a pop, thus compared to the £12 a chain of the ones you've been buying means there's no price increase.

Please Stop telling me what to do, I will still buy SRAM chains, I already stated that, unless the quality goes down. I don’t mind you espousing the merits of Shimano chains, just please don’t tell me what I should do. You make no mention of the quality just the cheapness

[Brucey]

... You make no mention of the quality just the cheapness

Shimano IG51 chain has not been mentioned in any shimano documentation since the early noughties. Nor is this chain sold by any sanctioned shimano agents, only "here today gone tomorrow" e-bay sellers. It also doesn't appear in the list of shimano chains made by KMC. The packaging says 'made in Japan' but this seems unlikely.

This all whiffs of 'knock-off' to me.

cheers