Price of Chains

[thelawnet]

... 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

lol I didn't spot that comment...

what a very poor-quality counterfeit, with so many slapdash amateurish errors that one hates to think what the contents are like....

(full-size https://i.imgur.com/BzTwgHa.jpg)

Cf. genuine packaging from contemporary NOS chain:

(full-size image: https://i.imgur.com/2POyXis.jpg)

I am surprised so many people are taken in by this rubbish.

They don't even work well

https://www.bicycles.net.au/forums/view ... hp?t=94415

At least the fakes of new R9100 chains or whatever are vaguely plausible from an inventory perspective.

[thelawnet]

Looks like there are different versions of the fake packaging

100% of these are fake, fairly obviously.

This one has some of the errors fixed, but there are still many remaining:



https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/wRwAAOSw ... -l1600.jpg

[PH]

So where do we think the price of chains is going?
I use the same model of single speed chain on three bikes, one of which might need a chain sometime this winter the other two are probably good for about a year, usage probably averages 1.5 a year. Chain currently available half RRP (£18/£35), though it has been from one source or another for a few years.
Considering chains in the draw is equivalent to money in the bank, would you stock up? How many? Postage is £7 so obviously the overall price comes down with quantity.

[Brucey]

I think it is worth having some spare chains about the place even if the price stays the same or perhaps even goes down; when you need them you need them.

When prices have risen as they have in the last year or so you have to ask yourself if it is just a temporary thing (to do with Covid perhaps, both diminishing supply and creating more demand) or something more fundamental like an increase in the manufacturing/distribution cost of the chains. For example SRAM chains are made in Portugal, but the company that owns them probably does its business in USD; this means that currency fluctuations can affect prices in ways that are not always obvious (not to me, anyway).

As well as cost of any given chain I find it very difficult to compare chains of different sorts in terms of value for money; not least because unless you have used many similar chains before you don't know how long they are really going to last for (in your use), and manufacturing/test data on previously untried chains is often scant.

Chains that wear obviously wear everything else too, so (for example) are you better off using two hard-wearing chains to one cassette or three or four cheaper ones that each don't last as long?

FWIW I think that prices won't go up that much in the next six months, and there might be 'winter bargains' to be had. But that is just a guess; no infallible crystal ball here!

cheers

[Sweep]

On pricing, I seem to remember that in the now dim dim past (and definitely before the wiggle union) Chain Reaction used to do multipacks of chains (3?) at an extra discount. Seems to make sense for a consumable. Anyone know any companies/outlets that do this? Some I know do it with tubes, but I have less need of that - I take care so get few punctures and I repair my own tubes - quite rare that I have to bin one.

Maybe someone should start a chaingang - not that frantic boring racing stuff but a purchasing club.

[PH]

I think it is worth having some spare chains about the place even if the price stays the same or perhaps even goes down; when you need them you need them.
...
But that is just a guess; no infallible crystal ball here!

cheers

Yes, sorry, it was probably a daft question.
It's a chain I like, at a good price, that can be used on most of my bikes, it shouldn't matter what happens next, I've ordered enough for a few years.

[thelawnet]

Here's a reasonably interesting video about chains

[youtube]ZrCp52b34Uk[/youtube]

The author compares an SLX and XT 12-speed chain on an EMTB, which seems to be very hard on components, being 'E', which suggests that perhaps some of the rest of us might seek out EMTB parts for durability.

Anyway the SLX and XT chains function identically and weight the same, but the XT one lasted 60% longer (which was only 240km under hard conditions using the SLX chain to 0.5%).

The Shimano spec goes into detail which they don't in that video, namely:

M6100 Deore - Chromizing treatment roller link pin, 'brown' roller (inner) link plate, 'gray' pin (outer) link plate 252g
M7100 SLX - ditto but 'sil-tec' roller link plate 252g
M8100 XT - ditto but 'chromizing' roller link plate 252g
M9100 XTR - ditto but 'sil-tec' pin link plate, 'sil-tec' roller, hollow pin 242g

So the 'chromizing' seems to be the key here. It seems doubtful the extra Teflon bits and hollow pins on the XTR would help, and perhaps one would not expect worse performance from the M6100 than the M7100.

It looks like when they introduced M9100, in 2018, they also introduced CN-E8000-11, an ebike chain with the same chromizing treatment but minus the hollow pins.

However, M8100 is a good bit cheaper, so.....