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Has this been done before?
I was thinking about the best way of maximising the longevity of my 105 11sp drivetrain. From a bit of reading it seems that the best approach is to run a number of chains in rotation on the same cassette, and to run the whole drivetrain into the ground.
Does anyone do this? What's the optimal number of chains - 3, 4, 5...?
Use a chain checker tool and just replace the chain when needed.if you run it into the ground then for a period it will be bad
Change the chain at about 0.5% stretch, that will give you two, possibly three chains per cassette. Then usually two cassettes per chainring.
Change the chain at about 0.5% stretch, that will give you two, possibly three chains per cassette. Then usually two cassettes per chainring.
Exactly this.
People running chains in rotation are just trying too hard to be clever IMO.
105 so on the road ?
in the past my ultegra(6600) drive trains have gone to nearly 10k recorded KM before the chain starts to part at the rivets..... - annoyingly that was coming down the backside of Alpe dhuez .... had to limp it home.
rather surprisingly after a clean and a new chain(have you seen the price of cassettes in captive euro villages- chain alone was 35 euro ) - its gone on to do another 4500km without slipping or poor shifting.(i have sub 1k kms R8000 on another bike for comparison)
Lives on the turbo trainer now I have just ordered a new chain and cassette for it now because i have been sticking about 1000 watts through it reasonably regular in sprints and i dare to think about the consequences of that going tits up .
On the MTB its a whole other ball game. Have written off new chain and cassettes in a single 24hr event before. - Solved that issue by going singlespeed.
Sorry, should have clarified that this is on the gravel bike, which spends 95% of its life pootling around back roads.
the other surprising one was my touring/gravel/Commuting bike has 8 speed claris on with an XT touring chainset
its done 6000km , the 48tooth tooth outer chainring is toast as in slips any time you put power down..... cassette still shifts find and no slippage if I'm using the middle ring.
Am not sure you can even accurately measure 0.5% wear, I've seen new chains measure that with a Park chain wear tool!
Will be experimenting with replacing a chain on my Ultegra drivetrain at 4500km and somewhere between 0.75% and 1%. It's had an easy life so fingers crossed!
the only reason to run multiple chains on the same cogs is to clean the chains that are off the bike properly. if you're not going to do that just measure and replace at 0.5%.
Run the whole lot together until it actually dies.
All the components will wear at the same rate, the performance will be the same until very, very late into the drive train life. Just keep it clean.
Multiple chains is good for 2 reasons:
1. It stops the chain and cassette wearing in to each. Hard to describe, but a real effect.
2. Rotating the chains let's you clean them properly. Take off, rinse. Put in white spirit / petrol / paraffin in a sealed container, shake repeatedly. Take out, rinse, dry, lube. Can recycle the solvent by putting through a coffee filter in a funnel.
Been doing it for years. Works.
Rotating the chains let’s you clean them properly.
So does taking it off, cleaning it, and putting it back on.
Moltenspeedwax is a great life increaser when it’s the dry (ish) season
Muddy winter is harder to do with wax. I use Finish Line Wet Lube. (Used to be “Cross Country lube) but any lube will carry grit into the links which is why cleaning and waxing wins for longevity
Ideally a waxed chain that’s got wet needs to be rinsed in boiling water then re-waxed - after any wet ride. With chains in rotation and a small slow cooker it’s not too onerous.
I’d do 3 chains in rotation anyway, seems a reasonable number (but you could do more)
I believe that it’s sound engineering logic to rotate the component that wears fastest (and at the same time wears the rest of the drivetrain) - rather than being too clever IMO. 3 chains should triple the time to overall failure.
Of course it also allows for proper cleaning.
If you do want to check pin wear accurately then it’s the unavailable Shimano gauge or
Pedros plus 2 wear checker.
(Measure properly)
https://mandrillapp.com/track/click/30281159/www.merlincycles.com?p=eyJzIjoiMmUyaFVLdWxFZGV6MDBfbjBZWFRPY3VJbDJnIiwidiI6MSwicCI6IntcInVcIjozMDI4MTE1OSxcInZcIjoxLFwidXJsXCI6XCJodHRwczpcXFwvXFxcL3d3dy5tZXJsaW5jeWNsZXMuY29tXFxcL3BlZHJvcy1jaGFpbi1jaGVja2VyLXBsdXMtaWktMTE0MzgwLmh0bWxcIixcImlkXCI6XCIxMGM2ZjFmMTNhYjM0ZTNkOTRkOWYwZmE1OTI3N2IwMlwiLFwidXJsX2lkc1wiOltcIjU3NmM4NzJhM2Y1ZThjNDA0NGRlOGFkNmJlMGVkNTA4MTJhOTRlNzNcIl19In0
Opinions on measuring tools:
http://pardo.net/bike/pic/fail-004/000.html#commercial-wear-measuring-tools
(The currently available “Pedro’s Chain Checker Plus chain wear indicator” shares the same measurement features with the Shimano TL-CN40 and TL-CN41 tools)
Hey, just my 2p worth
Neil
I’d do 3 chains in rotation anyway, seems a reasonable number (but you could do more)
Given that the average user on here has 7 bikes that are ridden about 3 times a year, that's a lot of chains.
Surely not 15 posts without mention of the 'P' word 🙂
Ssssshhhh - you have to stand on one leg and say ‘Putoline’ 3 times before he appears 😉
Multiple chains is good for 2 reasons:
1. It stops the chain and cassette wearing in to each. Hard to describe, but a real effect.
2. Rotating the chains let’s you clean them properly. Take off, rinse. Put in white spirit / petrol / paraffin in a sealed container, shake repeatedly. Take out, rinse, dry, lube. Can recycle the solvent by putting through a coffee filter in a funnel.
Been doing it for years. Works.
have not been doing this for years - also works.
1. It stops the chain and cassette wearing in to each. Hard to describe, but a real effect.
At what mileage do you decide to remove the first chain and fit the second? Presume it has to be before you get to .75 wear, as that defeats the point, but any distance milestone will be completely arbitrary as all riders have different conditions and surfaces that make predicting chain wear difficult to compare.
I'm in the "let it all wear out together" camp, the shifting does get worse over time, but it stays reasonable right till nearly the end, until you can't tension out the wear via the cables any longer...then just bin the lot.
significant amounts of wear related shifting issues disappear when you change jockey wheels - often over looked part of the drive train.
Run the whole lot together until it actually dies.
All the components will wear at the same rate, the performance will be the same until very, very late into the drive train life. Just keep it clean.
There's one big downside of this - you're far more likely to have a mechanical failure towards the end of the life of a chain (and other drivetrain components too) and, if you do, you'll find that no replacement chain will work as the chainrings and cassette are both too worn to accept it. This is fine if you're at home with a garage / Wiggle full of parts to fix it, but if you're away from home and needing to get going again, it could be a trip-ruiner.
I've always been a great proponent of proactive maintenance and change chains at 0.75% (<= 11 speed) or 0.5% (12 speed) and haven't had a major drivetrain mechanical for years. I appreciate that it might not be the absolute cheapest way to run a bike, but I'm not in it for profit 😉
*sings the putoline Song*
My Cube road bike is coming up to 3 years old, ~11650 miles including plenty of hilly virtual miles (no easy way to see number of hours unfortunately).
Bike has barely seen any wet falling from the sky and has ridden through very little standing water. The Muc Off C3 Ceramic Wet lube stops rust, but the black sludge isn't ideal.
I changed the 11-speed chain and cassette after ~18 months and I hope to be doing the same again very soon, while also swapping out the 5800 rear mech for an R7000 one.
Chainset teeth still look ok, but keeping an eye out for a bargain to put in the spares box, dilemma at mo as FC510 sets are at Merlin for ~£50 but I'd love to try an R7000 chainset.
I must remember to order up some dry lube!
If you could keep the lube on your chain no matter how shitty the conditions, that would massively help longevity. Maybe some kind of heavy sticky wax. If only there were such a product.....
sings the putoline Song
Is that to the tune of the Spiderman theme?
🙂
As above, keep your chain clean & lubed & keep an eye on your jockey wheels. I don't think I've ever worn out a road bike cassette.
Ideally a waxed chain that’s got wet needs to be rinsed in boiling water then re-waxed – after any wet ride. With chains in rotation and a small slow cooker it’s not too onerous.
????????
If its actually removed the wax just throw it back in the putoline. Otherwise put it away and ride again tonorrow.
Im in the "run it untill its all knackered" camp, apart from the Gx, that gets handled with white cotton gloves to try and avoid too many £150 cassettes.
Pretty sure I swapped to a new chain on an old cassette after many thousands of miles and then climbed alpedhuz.... Like smokey and the bandit bootlegging beer east of Texas they said it couldn't be done yet it could.
None of the photoline nonsense either. Hell that same drive trains currently getting 2t for lube on the turbo as it was closest to hand.....it would have been 10/40 but the tub was further away. Still going strong an all.
May not work is a far cry from will not work
@cha****ng
People running chains in rotation are just trying too hard to be clever IMO.
If you understand chain and casette wear it is obvious why rotation is better than running a number of chains to .5 or .75 but if it is too much effort to understand then crack on.
Ideally a waxed chain that’s got wet needs to be rinsed in boiling water then re-waxed – after any wet ride.
No, not neccessary. It lasts many wet rides (and retains excellent lubrication) and then you just dunk it in the fryer wet or dry.
It's strange how people seem to think Putoline fans are doing some kind of elaborate ritual for obsessive religious reasons. All I want is to reduce the effort required to keep a bike going, and Putoline reduces my already efficient process dramatically - and gives much better lubrication and longevity at the same time. I use it because it's both easier and extremely effective, not because I'm some kind of zealot.
But of course, if you are prepared to run until it's dead then it doesn't matter either way. I used to do this but I don't like having the noisy rough drivetrain that was the result for most of the time.
None of the photoline nonsense either.
Just because you don't use it doesn't mean it's nonsense. It's effective, regardless of your desire to denigrate people who use it 🙂
Pretty sure I swapped to a new chain on an old cassette after many thousands of miles and then climbed alpedhuz
Can't have been very worn then, as I've ended up with skipping cassettes countless times if I don't change the chain early enough. It's definitely a thing.
Maybe it's your lube routine that's destroying your cassettes .
<Insert>fishing.gif</insert>
My point being is that may skip has morphed into will skip. My experiance us that the small cogs on MTB cassettes wear out because they are way under geared for the majority of the ride to allow you to winch up the steeps.
On the road with an appropriate range of gears and minimal need to get 6 inches further up the unclimbable it's less of a certainty
I would have thought that a few thousand miles was about right for a road bike chain anyway?
I've got 2 cassettes and 2 chains that get rotated ad-hock on the road bike, they all seem to still be working together after many thousands of miles. The initial plan was to have a summer and a winter drive chain (13-27 and 11-23 cassettes) and a chain for each but the other cassette lived on the turbo wheel and changing chains to do a virtual ride became a faff so I stopped and now just rotate the chains when they feel a bit dry.
As molgrips said, I use putoline because it cuts down on the number of things to do, not because I like the faff! As soon as one bike feels dry, all the used chains go in. Usually it's the cross/gravel bike that needs it as that get's the worst combination of high miles and crappy conditions. So the road bike is rarely run until it's dry.
"....stand on one leg....."
Personalized chain lube
https://xcp-protection.com/products/xcp-chain-lubricant/
Maybe it’s your lube routine that’s destroying your cassettes .
I've only had Putoline for 6 months, been riding for 25 years.
Riding with a stretched chain destroys cassettes. Everyone knows this, apart from apparently you 😉
It is less of an issue on road bikes it's true. But it still happens on mine, mostly the 3rd-6th from the smallest.
CHAINS DONT STRETCH !
After donkeys years of trying different methods of trying eek out more life out of drivetrains, I’ve found the best balance of faff to results is (as lots of others have mentioned) just clean the chain regularly, keep it lubed and ditch it at 0.5 wear. I’ve found it is handy to have two chains, as you can chuck the spare on while the other ferments in degreaser. However, if you’re like me and forget where you’ve put the spare chain, it might just be easier with one chain!😁
CHAINS DONT STRETCH !
They do. They get longer because the pin wears where it contacts the plate. It's not inelastic deformation of the metal, of course, but that's academic since the chain ends up longer.
you can chuck the spare on while the other ferments in degreaser.
CHAINS DON'T FERMENT!
No that's true, they don't.
Just replaced the chain on my road bike at 4500km, mostly dry.
1) The old one had definitely stretched, it was half a link longer than the new one
2) Chain wear gauge said somewhere between 0.75% and 1%, no wear visible on chainrings, a couple of cogs on the cassette just on the cusp of showing some deformation.
3) Cautious test ride suggests I got away with it...