Cycling UK Forum

Brucey wrote:Rohloff make a tool to assess sprocket wear

I have that tool, but cannot get any sense out of it.

I've tried it on sprockets that certainly make a new chain jump and it doesn't seem to show anything different from sprockets that don't. My conclusion is you simply can't tell. Suck it and see is the only way.

And it's a good idea of Edwards' to keep old part-worn chains to eke more life out of otherwise junk cassettes. I do that but not in such an organised way. I have some old chains that I'm not sure how worn they are. But I have a small nail (same size as a chain rivet with head cut off) in the garage doorframe and a mark (with a drawing of the end of an outer chain link) 50 inches down from that, so I hang em up to see. Half a link beyond the mark is 0.5%, obviously. A whole link (inner link where an outer should be, hence the drawing) is 1%.

With quick-links it's easy to take a chain off to measure it properly. Those little chain measuring tools that fit between the rollers are almost useless, since they measure two doses of irrelevant roller slop along with not many more doses of actual rivet wear. The shorter they are the worse they are. Some apparently make an assumption about how sloppy the rollers will be, which if it corresponds with your actual chain may nevertheless yield a fairly true result. But on another chain - it's anyone's guess. My Rohloff tool once told me that a brand-new (but very cheap) chain was worn out already, straight out the box. I hung that chain on my nail and it was not worn at all - spot-on for length but with very sloppy rollers. As my friend had asked me to fit the thing to his bike I did so anyway - and it worked like a good one (but I don't know for how long).

I did make a little wedge to go with my Rohloff tool, that I used to shove between the back roller and the one behind it, which pushes that roller forward likewise the one pushed by the other end of the tool, thus taking roller slop out of the equation. But I lost the toolkit that had that tool in it and can't be bothered buying and modifying another one. So I'm sorry I can't show you a picture of it in action.

CJ,

can you explain the difference between roller slop and rivet wear please, and how can you tell which is which without taking the chain apart.

IrishBill76 wrote:I think the majority of us would agree that a clean drivetrain will far outlast a dirty one. Cleaning your chain is definitely not a waste of time.

I agree totally and it's not just a question of wear. A dirty chain adds friction and reduces efficiency. I clean mine about every three months and I can always feel the difference.

Cleaning a chain every three months could easily mean that you were riding with a dirty chain for 2 and a half months.

I have one bike where the chain has been on for about a year now without being washed, still with manufacturer's grease in it.
Other chains get washed after just one long filthy ride. They were probably dirty for 95% of that ride, I think that is what the controversial quote was on about, you can leave the house with a spotless chain and five miles later it is dirty.

I've kept away from this thread so far.

I reckon that I have long-lived chains because I don't ride off-road very much at all. The chain lube I use is for clean conditions so it suits my riding.

I have four chains. A B C D.
A has done 6,089miles
B has done 4,967miles
C is on at the moment and has done 3,146miles
D has done (only) 936miles
All four chains are well within wear limits.

There's only one rule for chain longevity: If it's dirty, clean it.

meic wrote:Cleaning a chain every three months could easily mean that you were riding with a dirty chain for 2 and a half months.

I have one bike where the chain has been on for about a year now without being washed, still with manufacturer's grease in it.
Other chains get washed after just one long filthy ride. They were probably dirty for 95% of that ride, I think that is what the controversial quote was on about, you can leave the house with a spotless chain and five miles later it is dirty.

If that's true there's no point in ever washing a chain. Dirt accumulates steadily. It doesnt just get 'x' amount of dirt and then stop and it's not as dirty after one week as it will be at two and then three etc. Dérailleurs dont help. They are warehouses of dirt and help no end in passing it on to the chain. One reason why I stopped using them.

Mick F wrote:I've kept away from this thread so far.

I reckon that I have long-lived chains because I don't ride off-road very much at all. The chain lube I use is for clean conditions so it suits my riding.

I have four chains. A B C D.
A has done 6,089miles
B has done 4,967miles
C is on at the moment and has done 3,146miles
D has done (only) 936miles
All four chains are well within wear limits.

There's only one rule for chain longevity: If it's dirty, clean it.

Amen to that.

Dirt accumulates steadily

Not in my experience. My chains can stay pretty clean until I venture on a Sustrans track.

It takes several hundred miles of road riding to equal fives miles on a dirty/ sandy bit of unsurfaced road.

My local Audaxes often include 5 miles along a sandy coastal path. If it is at the end of the ride I can clean the chain at home, if it is at the start then my chain will suffer for the whole ride.

andrewjoseph wrote:CJ,

can you explain the difference between roller slop and rivet wear please, and how can you tell which is which without taking the chain apart.

The rivets join the outer link sidepates and also act as the shaft about which the inner link 'bushes' rotate. Thus they join the inner links to the outer links and wear between bush and rivet is what lets a chain get longer. Only the outer links get longer actually, each one by twice the amount of wear between bush and rivet. Anyway, that's what makes chains 'stretch', that's what really matters. To measure it, you pull the chain straight and measure how much longer it's got than a whole number of half-inches.

The rollers are little metal rings outside the bushes and nestle between the inner link sideplates. By rolling around the bushes they reduce friction when the chain meshes in and out of the teeth. If they're looser the lubricant escapes and dirt gets under them easier so the friction goes up, that's all. To measure how sloppy they are I would take make three measurements on an INNER link: (a) gap between its two rollers pushed apart, (b) distance across them pushed together and (c) diameter of a roller. The slop (internal diametrical clearance) between roller and bush = c - ½(b-a).

meic wrote: My chains can stay pretty clean until I venture on a Sustrans track.
It takes several hundred miles of road riding to equal fives miles on a dirty/ sandy bit of unsurfaced road.

Exactly.

If you commute on a sand/cinder track, you'll be needing to clean your transmission every day.

Best thing to do in those conditions is not bother cleaning anything, and just replace the whole lot annually.

meic wrote:My chains can stay pretty clean until I venture on a Sustrans track.

It takes several hundred miles of road riding to equal fives miles on a dirty/ sandy bit of unsurfaced road.

Absolutely agree with that. There's a bit of towpath that Guildford's traffic bullies me into using, though the gritty surface makes my chain grate all the way home.

Grimshaw's gruesome gravel must be responsible for untold wear and tear of expensively manufactured bike equipment, making cycling more expensive as well as less efficient than it ought to be, whilst wasting precious material resources.

Mick F wrote:Best thing to do in those conditions is not bother cleaning anything, and just replace the whole lot annually.

AHA!! So Mick does acknowlege an exception to his labour-intensive dry-cleaning regime. An exception moreover, that applies to a great many cyclists, possibly a majority, now that motors rule the roads and any sensibly risk-averse rider is driven to use those grotty paths, filthy alleys and unswept margins that masquerade as cycling facilities in this bike-forsaken country.

Actually, I've found that replacing the whole lot is unnecessary in spite of no chain cleaning at all, if the chain is replaced at 0.5% elongation and the accumulated gunge peeled off the pulleys and scraped from between the sprocket/chainring teeth at the same time. The rest of the transmission will nevertheless outlast many chains, provided those are discarded in time and kept nice and oily meanwhile.

Yours disgustingly, Fungus the Bogeyman

Anybody got any opinions of the effects of corrosion vs. wear on chains?
I have been using a Rohloff wear gauge for 15 or more years....mostly I chuck chains away when the gauge says they are "worn out" in patches along their length, which I figure is corrosion. I err on the side of caution and bin chains with more than the occasional bit where the gauge drops straight in. My experience with this gauge is that if I wear a chain past the point where the gauge drops right in for say half of the length of the chain, then the cassette is toast. In my experience, CJ's wedge to take the roller "float" out of the measurement would result in a new cassette for each new chain.

I'm waiting to produce a "worn" chain that isn't significantly corroded, then I shall measure it and send it to Brucey or somebody to check.

NB this is Yorkshire, they salt the roads (or some of the roads) liberally throughout a lot of the year. Its not unusual to find the chain in the morning rusted into an "S" bent around the jockey wheels. I'm hopeful that I can keep the summer bike chain corrosion-free for measurement, but I didn't manage that on the last chain off that bike, and I only replaced it recently.

When the brakes wear through the rim, I rebuild the wheel and generally replace the cassette, because I figure they won't actually last for ever. By then the cassette still works with a new chain, but sprocket tooth wear is visible.

CJ wrote:

Mick F wrote:Best thing to do in those conditions is not bother cleaning anything, and just replace the whole lot annually.

AHA!! So Mick does acknowlege an exception to his labour-intensive dry-cleaning regime. An exception moreover, that applies to a great many cyclists, possibly a majority, now that motors rule the roads and any sensibly risk-averse rider is driven to use those grotty paths, filthy alleys and unswept margins that masquerade as cycling facilities in this bike-forsaken country.

Actually, I've found that replacing the whole lot is unnecessary in spite of no chain cleaning at all, if the chain is replaced at 0.5% elongation and the accumulated gunge peeled off the pulleys and scraped from between the sprocket/chainring teeth at the same time. The rest of the transmission will nevertheless outlast many chains, provided those are discarded in time and kept nice and oily meanwhile.

Yours disgustingly, Fungus the Bogeyman

That's pretty much what I do.......I can't read the numbers on the gauge, though, they wore off years ago.....**

**Edit.....actually, not true....I don't have my lenses in to-day, so I can read it,,,,it says 0.1mm......no wiser!!

CJ wrote:There's a bit of towpath that Guildford's traffic bullies me into using, though the gritty surface makes my chain grate all the way home.

That's the problem.
You are bullied into using a route that ruins you bike's transmission.

If you go on a gritty path, you have to pay the consequences.