[HoldingOn]

I met a gent on my cycle home Friday, who mentioned he had three chains for his bike. I said I thought it odd to have a chain for different types of route (my first thought) He explained that he “rotates them once month and they last longer”
I suppressed my initial response “don’t they rotate as you cycle?” but that meant he moved on to another subject.
My question – what does he mean and does it help chains last longer? Does giving the chain a rest help prevent it stretching?

Topic

[Rendel Harris]

HoldingOn wrote:

(believe it or not – I have actually played around with my cadence, to see if a higher cadence wears out the chain quicker, as well as how it affects my speed)

What did you discover? I’d guess lower cadence was more wearing as it would impose greater torque on the chain than the same power at a higher cadence?

[HoldingOn]

or to not turn my chain as

or to not turn my chain as often. If i could always travel downhill, then I wouldn’t even need a chain….

(believe it or not – I have actually played around with my cadence, to see if a higher cadence wears out the chain quicker, as well as how it affects my speed)

[chrisonabike]

Shurely the easy way to

Shurely the easy way to reduce wear by using extra chain is just to have more chain?  So a rear-wheel drive recumbent (mine uses around 3 normal chain’s worth), or a tandem, or…

[chrisonabike]

Also for cleaning just use

Also for cleaning just use the ShelBroCo method.

[HoldingOn]

I am on a constant quest to

I am on a constant quest to keep costs down, so I appreciate the alternatives!

I think, as is consistent with my cycling journey so far, I will build up to an ultrasonic tank. I have some oil still, so will use the last of it, then try wax.
I am still trying to find that fine balance between short term and long term cost savings.

Lots of very useful tips from everyone – thank you.

[mark1a]

HoldingOn wrote:

I think I would benefit more from improving my chain cleaning process. bikes’ idea of a jar of spirits/degreaser with a mesh in the bottom, followed by an oil bath sounds like a good starting point. Depending how I go, I might then started experimenting with waxing my chain.

I picked up an ultrasonic cleaner a couple of years ago, and use that with a degreaser. After getting fed up with paying £15 a litre “bike tax” for the “bike brands”, I took a recommendation from a fellow traveller on road.cc and now use the Screwfix No Nonsense degreaser at £12.99 for 5 litres. A light agitation with a paintbrush in 5:1 water solution, followed by 20 minutes at 40 deg C in the ultrasonic tank works wonders. 

Here’s my pre-RideLondon service from last week:

 

[Cugel]

HoldingOn wrote:

Interesting – I hadn’t considered that side of the wear.

As someone else has mentioned – it does sound like quite a bit of faff for moderate benefit.

I think I would benefit more from improving my chain cleaning process. bikes’ idea of a jar of spirits/degreaser with a mesh in the bottom, followed by an oil bath sounds like a good starting point. Depending how I go, I might then started experimenting with waxing my chain.

It’s correct that chains don’t stretch elastically but get slightly longer as the pins wear in their housings. This lengthening, though, can still be accurately portrayed by calling the chain “stretched”. It has got longer, see? The stretching mode is a wear-mode not an elastic-mode.

Shaking chains in a bottle of degreaser won’t get all of the damaging-grinding stuff out of the chain. The stuff wearing the pins in their housings is trapped in the teeny-weeny gaps created and will resist a mere shake-the-bottle dislodgement. I know this by applying that technique then giving the chain a proper shake in an ultrsonic cleaner. Loh! – a blackening of the waters, with their clearing revealing a sediment of fine black grunge now removed from them pin-housings.

Nor is an oil bath a good way to lubricate a chain.  The oil is sticky and will immediately attract the dust in the air, from the road and from the rock-mud encountered by gravel & MTB rides. It does keep the rust off – but rust isn’t really the enemy of chains.

Dry lubes (including various waxes) seem best. Best of all are tested to be those which evaporate or rub off to leave the magic slippery molecules coating the chain innards – those pins and their housings where the chain wear causing “stretch” occurs.

Silca chain lubes get the best test results in various on-line reviews. How accurate are the reviews, though? Many might be paid-for adverts in disguise!  To test the claims, I’m using some Silca stuff on one of me bike chains now. 150k so far with no sign of black gunk or chain-creak. Supposedly I can do another 350K before the next lube (one little drop per chain roller).

We’ll see.

[HoldingOn]

Interesting – I hadn’t

Interesting – I hadn’t considered that side of the wear.

As someone else has mentioned – it does sound like quite a bit of faff for moderate benefit.

I think I would benefit more from improving my chain cleaning process. bikes’ idea of a jar of spirits/degreaser with a mesh in the bottom, followed by an oil bath sounds like a good starting point. Depending how I go, I might then started experimenting with waxing my chain.

[hawkinspeter]

Welsh boy wrote:

As far as I can see chain roatation is a load of rubbish.  You use one chain until it is partially worn, take it off and use another chain (or chins) for a while.  You then put the partially worn chain back on and use it a bit longer until it is a bit mor worn then you take it back off and use the other partially worn chains.  Eventually you get to the point where you realise that you have a totally worn out chain and bin it, the other cahin(s) in the roatation soon follow and so you end up replacing all 3 chains and, more importantly, all 3 chains have been used on the transmission until the point at which they are fully worn (streteched if you prefer that term).  Expalin to me, with proof, not anecdotes, how that is better than using one chain at a time.

I’m not a proponent of it, but I’d say the idea is to try to match the wearing of the chains with the wearing of the cassette. Without chain rotation, you end up matching a brand new chain with a part-worn cassette (e.g. after replacing the first chain you used with it), but with rotation you’re using a part-worn chain with it. I don’t see that it should make much difference though.

[EK Spinner]

Just picking up on the last

Just picking up on the last line from the OP, chains do not “stretch”, they wear, there is no elongation of the chain components.

what actually happens is the bearings or rollers that make up each link wear slightly, because the chain operates in tension all the time then the worn bearings are all pulled in the same direction, when this wear increase  then so does the pitch between the various rollers thus giving the effect of the chain becoming longer or “stretching”. This increase in pitch is what then causes the teeth in your casstte sprockets to wear as they try to match the worn chain.

The practice of chain rotation makes sense in this respect as each worn chain is more closely matching the worn teeth on a casette, whereas a new chain doen’t match the worn cassette. The time will come where all 3 chains and the casette will need changed together

[Welsh boy]

As far as I can see chain

As far as I can see chain roatation is a load of rubbish.  You use one chain until it is partially worn, take it off and use another chain (or chins) for a while.  You then put the partially worn chain back on and use it a bit longer until it is a bit mor worn then you take it back off and use the other partially worn chains.  Eventually you get to the point where you realise that you have a totally worn out chain and bin it, the other cahin(s) in the roatation soon follow and so you end up replacing all 3 chains and, more importantly, all 3 chains have been used on the transmission until the point at which they are fully worn (streteched if you prefer that term).  Expalin to me, with proof, not anecdotes, how that is better than using one chain at a time.

[Woldsman]

I briefly flirted with chain

I briefly flirted with chain rotation, but decided it was too much of a faff.  

I fit the chain with the connecting pin, clean when I can, avoid cross-chaining and don’t grind the gears.  Replace the chain when it gets to 0.5% worn.  

[hawkinspeter]

HoldingOn wrote:

That makes sense.

I purchased a chain-wear-indicator and its been quite good, but I feel I am going through chains too quickly. I hoped there was some “trick” I was missing.

I suspect I need to up my bike maintainence process and give the chain a deep clean, rather than a cursory brush.

The trick to making chains last longer is definitely keeping them as clean as possible. Wax instead of oil is recommended as it doesn’t turn into a grinding paste by sticking to the grit and dust. If you use oil, then you’ll be wanting to clean it as often as possible and definitely before re-oiling it.

[HoldingOn]

That makes sense.

That makes sense.

I purchased a chain-wear-indicator and its been quite good, but I feel I am going through chains too quickly. I hoped there was some “trick” I was missing.

I suspect I need to up my bike maintainence process and give the chain a deep clean, rather than a cursory brush.

[Cugel]

One reason proffered to

One reason proffered to justify the 3-chain rotation is that the chains and sprockets.chainrings wear together more evenly. Personally I don’t care to wear expensive sprockets and chainrings at all so try to change a chain when the indicator (a proper one) says it’s “stretched” by 0.5%. This seems to work as I rarely have to renew a sprocket or chainring. Not for years now, despite the many miles (and even more kilometres).

Another and more cogent reason for chain rotation is that it makes more convenient the business of proper chain cleaning & lubing (justified as a means to increase both chain and sprocket/chainring life). Take off the chain to be cleaned & lubed and immediately put on another already so-dealt with. Clean and lube the dirty chain whilst waiting for the coffee pecrculator to finish burbling and gurgling. I keep the coffee machine next to the ultrasonic cleaner, myself.

[Author]

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