Cycling UK Forum

Interested in opinions if anyone has tried them. I appreciate they probably have little or no performance improvement, but the CNC ones I have seen on ebay compared to Shimano jockey wheels have a spidery design rather than solid which for me would I imagine be quite helpful on a winter bike as they would to an extent be self cleaning and easier to clean.

Ah self cleaning that well known oxymoron. The holes just fill with the grinding gunge we generate in our drivetrains. There is no replacement for regular cleaning. Seven years commuting boil down to wash it properly every week. The quality of the bearings on jockey wheels is the key thing. The only reasonably explainable brand leap I can describe is XTR users fitting BBB's ceramic bearing jockey wheels as they cost 30% less than the Shimano version

metal jockey wheels are noticeably noisier than plastic ones.

The holes in the ones you describe are purely cosmetic and are likely to fill up with crud if anything.

Most such jockey wheels rotate on cartridge bearings which may have seals but don't always have seals and shields.

Shimano and campagnolo upper pullies have a small amount of 'float' in them; aftermarket pullies generally don't.

If your mech is worn out and floppy in the parallelogram, sometimes a 'no float' upper pulley helps improve the shifting. But otherwise it just makes every adjustment a bit more critical.

For shimano mechs the best pullies IMHO are ultegra/XT spec ones (although similar are now fitted to other models).

They have a ceramic upper pulley bearing, and a cartridge lower pulley bearing. Both should be opened and serviced once a year (road use) or more often (MTB use).

cheers

Just a quick question - why will the holes in jockey wheels fill with crud? where does it come from? Don't seem to have that problem if you clean things properly.

on a winter bike/hack bike the jockey pullies end up coated in a mixture of road dirt and chain lube.

I got so cheesed off with the maintenance/cleaning required (if you ride 100-200 miles a week in foul/winter weather) that I gave up with de-danglers for such uses and went to an IGH instead, years ago.

Hereabouts they put a lot of salt on the roads and commuting mileage is worst of all because the salt is always freshly strewn. Cleaning a derailleur system daily allowed a free choice of chain lube but otherwise it was a case of using a heavier lube with less frequent cleaning, and accepting a certain amount of crud build-up between times.

With derailleur systems I found that a chain (or chain and sprocket set if you let it go too long) typically lasted less long than a pair of decent tyres. Local to me my cycling chums (who commute/train on derailleur geared bikes) report pretty much the same thing even now.

By contrast I can use an IGH for months and just keep lubing the chain. It attracts less crud to start with (there is nothing dangling down to catch the torrent of road dirt from the front wheel) and what crud is acquired is much less likely to cause any operational problems; there are no tiny pullies to get coated in rubbish and wear out or jam up, no spring loaded pivots to do anything similar. Most of the dirt just falls off when the chain is next lubed.

cheers

Some that I have seen I would be surprised if they filled up with muck for road riding, given the size of the gaps, like the jockey wheels on some SRAM mechs. For a winter hack bike sorry but life's too short to be cleaning it that regularly so if in some way then no bad thing.

Interesting to hear Brucey talk about IGH, never looked at that and had no idea these days they were available with 8 gears. Not that I am gonna change but interesting all the same.

It depends on the type of chain lube and the dirt, obviously. I have seen the crud so thick on jockey wheels that they won't go round any more, because they are rubbing on the cage.

IGH's are not perfect, but they can be a better compromise than a derailleur for winter bike use.

cheers

no crud since I fitted a front mudguard flap. clean chain, clean bottom bracket and clean front rings.

mudflaps certainly help but (especially if you ride quickly rather than slowly) the lower jockey pulley is usually still in the firing line off the front wheel.

You also get crud dropping out of the rear mudguard onto the transmission and the chainstays.

One way or anther transmissions tend to pick up a fair amount of crud.

cheers

riding where I live in Nidderdale muddy cacky roads are to be expected living in a farming area so as you say Brucey mudguards help which I have on my winter bike but certainly not completely in the transmission. Recently had a ride where I took a cut up a hill where the mud from passing tractors was so bad that my front wheel could barely turn round and I had to get off and walk for 5 mins Part and parcel of certain times of year round here, there are roads like that where you then make a note to avoid during ploughing season.

Does the jockey wheel tooth count make any difference? I hear of people using 9/10sp rear mechs on 7/8sp drive train and yet when you look at jockey wheels they sell them 10t for 7/8sp and 11t for 9/10sp

They are often a different tooth count but they are also slightly different widths, bore sizes etc as well.

Sometimes you can change pulley specification, but not always.

If you have a particular swap in mind maybe someone has already tried it.

cheers

Ahh sorry, I didn't mean I was looking to swap them.

I have just bought a new rear mech on the assumption that 9/10sp will work with an 8sp set up, I was just wondering why they have different tooth counts and what difference it makes.

larger pulleys give;

- slightly more capacity for the same cage length (some chain slack is taken up in 'pulley wrap' ) and
-perhaps more importantly smoother running (better chordal action).

You do need better pulley bearings though.

Edit; there is also an argument for having an odd-numbered tooth count on jockey pulleys; if the chain is never moved on the pulleys (e.g.during a wheel change) then alternate teeth -the ones that engage with the inner side plates- suffer side wear quickly on even-numbered pulleys. Eventually this can make the shift quality deteriorate; odd-numbered tooth count pulleys very simply last twice as long in this respect.

cheers

I can't say I get too worked up about jockey wheels, I just ride my bike without giving them much thought, although they do get cleaned along with the rest of the mechanism