Chains. Not very sexy, but every so often you're going to need a new one and you're spoilt for choice. Light ones, heavy duty ones, gold ones, you name it. Whatever they say on them, plenty of them will have been made by YBN. So you might save a few quid if you cut out the middle man.

The S10C (such a catchy name) is a low- to mid-range offering that does precisely everything I'd ever want a chain to do: it joins up the chainrings and sprockets and moves across them when I ask it to. Fitting is fairly straightforward: as usual, the chain came with a link pin that has a section that unscrews; as usual I ended up just snapping it off as it was stuck fast. Since then I've pretty much forgotten all about the chain and I've had no issues at all.

Shifting performance (on Ultegra 6700) is excellent, almost on a par with Shimano's own links. The chain comes with a fairly sticky lube applied that's good for a fair few miles before it needs topping up, and it buffs up nicely even after some fairly rough treatment on wet and salty roads. At 278g you're giving away 11g to the Ultegra chain and 22g to YBN's Titanium Nitride coated Soulchain that costs nearly three times as much, but I can happily live with those extra grams knowing I've saved quite a few quid.

Verdict

If you don't need a superlight chain or a flash-looking one, this will do just fine.