Cycling UK Forum

If you like rough stuff, extra wear & maintenance is unavoidable.....I would rather have a ride I enjoy

I like rough-stuff because it gets me to places I couldn't reach otherwise, unspoiled by motor traffic. I'd like it better if it were not rough, not least because then I could pay more attention to the view than the surface. That's why I'm increasingly drawn to Germany, Switzerland and Austria, because they don't seem to have silly hang-ups about 'urbanisation of the countryside' and are much freer with the tarmac!

Here's an example from my last tour, last week.

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

+1

I reckon that I have long-lived chains because I don't ride off-road very much at all......

I do,and a lot of the off road riding I do is dusty,which although I use what I consider to be a lube that doesn't attract dust and road grit(TF2),compared with other wet lubes,I find my chain gets cruddy.
When it does I clean it.
BTW I don't lube the chain before a ride therefore riding dusty/gritty roads with wet lube on the chain,but after a ride when it can soak into the pins and rollers and dry off on the outside where it won't attract dust and grit.
The chain "talks" to me when it needs lubing,if it "SHOUTS" I've not been listening

Personally I bought my bike to escape so-called civilization and its dirt, grime and noise. Getting away from it means taking to the beaten track and enjoying cycling nirvana. It may mean shortening the bikes transmission by a thousand or so miles and costing a few extra pounds, but it's so worth it
I doubt there's a time table as to when to clean the chain and stuff, but as soon as the oil on the jockey wheels can be scraped off with a screwdriver, its time for a clean.

CJ wrote:

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.

An interesting view on the subject.. of course one wonders would it be in the manufacturer's commerical interests to re-design the transmission so that it can be used in environments that contain sand, dust and gravel without wear? Possibby not. And yet this technology already exists. We have the case case, the two speed drive at the bottom bracket end and the eight speed hub at the wheel end... Adapt and survive ... even if one detests internal hub gears, then lets have a concerned effort to re-design the rear derailluer thingy so that it lies with the rear stay and can be placed in some sort of ABS plastic chain case..

Cars, trucks, scooters and refined motorcycles...(oh, okay and motorcycles like the MZ) did away with exposed transmission parts ages ago. Its seems remarkably strange that cyclists are still demanding them

On the plus side this gruesome gravel does keep my tracks remarkably clear from speeding roadies

Hi,
Kit Hill
If I am correct saw an Adder here and a young child was getting close to take a photo
Parent was not bothered.
Maybe it jut looks like Kit Hill

This is Kit Hill.

Not more than 3 miles from here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kit_Hill


IrishBill76 photo is of Winter Hill up in Lancashire.

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%.

This seems like the most accurate way to me so last night I hung my new chain up on a nail and marked where the hole was in the last link which takes the quick-link. This turns out to be 56.5" (143.5cm). When I hung the old chain up it had "stretched" by 3/8" (9.5mm) which is 0.66% by my reckoning (which agrees reasonably with the gauge). From what I've read on here, the cassette wear will be borderline. Should I use the old cassette till the new chain reaches 0.5% stretch before I throw it away and use the new one?

If the new chain doesn't skip on the old cassette, then the old cassette is OK to use,,by my reckoning.

CJ wrote: ......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

This is more or less what I have done for many years with exposed chains on hub gears, the difference being that a new chain will usually tolerate being fitted to worn cogs better than with a derailleur setup, where a fraction too much chain wear is a sure recipe for jumping.

The modern predilection for tiny derailleur cogs and chainwheels does not help here; it has been my experience that these smaller sprockets wear faster and for a given state of wear, are more likely to cause jumping.

My suspicion is that with exposed cheap derailleur chains, 1000 miles would be an average mileage for 0.5% wear. You might get more in the summertime, but rather less in the winter or in dirty conditions. Such chains can cost £5 a go; perhaps this is an acceptable running cost?

I also can't help but think that if some chain elongation gauge were built in ( like some big pointers on the rear mech chain tension mechanism, that you would 'read' in one gear...) that people might check the chain wear and be more likely to replace the chain before it wears too far.

Most LBSs near me change chains and sprockets together. One reported to me that he had fitted over thirty cheap chain/freewheel setups during a two-week period earlier in the year.

Since most of the dirt on the chain comes from the front wheel, and the remainder from the rear, I can't help but think that improved mudflaps and mudguards ought to greatly stem the source of the crud-spray, in which case a much simpler chainguard (easier to fit on a derailleur system) might greatly improve chain life.

I recently got around to removing the (~14 year old....) chain from the chaincase of my town bike. It was elongated to well over 1%; the (soft steel) chainring was worn-but-workable, but the rear sprocket (proper hard steel) was just fine. A new chain (~£2.80 IIRC) and I was good to go again.

cheers

531colin wrote:If the new chain doesn't skip on the old cassette, then the old cassette is OK to use,,by my reckoning.

I agree.

BTW it is always better to accurately measure a worn chain (using a ruler or steel tape) than to compare it with a new chain. The reason is that new chains can (until the grease is pushed around in the bushings) measure slightly shorter than the nominal 1/2" pitch.

For a similar reason, even if a brand-new chain does skip on one (slightly worn) sprocket, it is often worth persevering with it for fifty miles or so; very often the new chain settles/elongates enough to work OK after a few miles.

cheers

tykeboy2003 wrote:
This seems like the most accurate way to me so last night I hung my new chain up on a nail and marked where the hole was in the last link which takes the quick-link. This turns out to be 56.5" (143.5cm). When I hung the old chain up it had "stretched" by 3/8" (9.5mm) which is 0.66% by my reckoning (which agrees reasonably with the gauge). From what I've read on here, the cassette wear will be borderline. Should I use the old cassette till the new chain reaches 0.5% stretch before I throw it away and use the new one?

The new chain will run happily on the present cassette and if you run the new chain to the same wear as the old chain(0.66%) the cassette should take a new 3rd chain without skipping.

Brucey wrote:
The modern predilection for tiny derailleur cogs and chainwheels does not help here; it has been my experience that these smaller sprockets wear faster and for a given state of wear, are more likely to cause jumping.

I find the more teeth the chain is wrapped around for most of the time ie; cruising in 46x21,rather than in say 36x16(a similar gear) the longer the chain lasts and....

Since most of the dirt on the chain comes from the front wheel, and the remainder from the rear, I can't help but think that improved mudflaps and mudguards ought to greatly stem the source of the crud-spray, in which case a much simpler chainguard (easier to fit on a derailleur system) might greatly improve chain life.

....I have a front mudflap 70mm wide that almost touches the road surface on the front m/guard.I make mine from builders plastic DPC which trails out behind the m/guard at speed and catches 90% of spray.
I also looked at trying a guard on the right side of the rear m/guard possibly attached to the right hand chainstay(which is the other source of spray/road grit on the chain) but can't come to a satisfactory conclusion about the fitting

Hi,

Mick F wrote:This is Kit Hill.
Not more than 3 miles from here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kit_Hill
IrishBill76 photo is of Winter Hill up in Lancashire.

I was'nt 100% sure.
When you are round the back of kit hill and look across to ariel masts it looks the same, but so do many hills with masts on from a distance.
I was looking from Kit Hill not to it...........no matter.

reohn2 wrote:

Brucey wrote:
Since most of the dirt on the chain comes from the front wheel, and the remainder from the rear, I can't help but think that improved mudflaps and mudguards ought to greatly stem the source of the crud-spray, in which case a much simpler chainguard (easier to fit on a derailleur system) might greatly improve chain life.

....I have a front mudflap 70mm wide that almost touches the road surface on the front m/guard.I make mine from builders plastic DPC which trails out behind the m/guard at speed and catches 90% of spray.
I also looked at trying a guard on the right side of the rear m/guard possibly attached to the right hand chainstay(which is the other source of spray/road grit on the chain) but can't come to a satisfactory conclusion about the fitting

All my bikes have mudguards fitted and stay much cleaner for it. However I do wonder if catching 90% of the spray here means that the bike stays 90% cleaner or just it takes 10 minutes to be saturated in filth instead of 1 minute.

I do have a chaincase for my shopping bike, I have had it a year and it still isnt fitted. I have tried twice and "left it for another day" after failing to get it right.