Interesting data on chain

[johnridley]

I put my current drive chain on at 16050 miles, on Dec 11. I just took it off and cleaned it, and it's showing 75% worn out. I'm at 17263, so it's just 1200 miles. I normally have been expecting 1800-2000 miles per chain, but that's working out to 1600 miles. But it was used in the roughest part of winter, so I guess a couple of weeks less life isn't horrible. Most people on BikeForums report getting 5000 or even 10000+ miles on a chain, but most people don't ride in the crazy dirty and salty environment I do.

I do need to keep an eye out for sales on chain. I have 2 or 3 left, I think I paid about $5 each for them at Nashbar, but for some crazy reason, they're up to $25 now, $15 on sale. Even my old trick of buying recumbent chains (twice as long) and splitting them won't work; they're $30. Something must have happened to run the price up. Maybe it's one of those "high cost of fuel" things that never rebounded when fuel dropped again.

With chains at that price, it may make economic sense for me to go ahead and run the chains in a worn-out state, let them wear the cogs out too, and start swapping among the 7 or 8 other worn out chains I have hanging in the garage, always switching to the least-worn-out one next. I could probably go for a couple of years like that, and when that runs out, flip all the cogs and chainrings over and start with a fresh set of chains.

Heck, it might even be worth it for me to start actually CLEANING my chain more often. I've got a method now that's actually pretty easy; mineral spirits in a peanut butter jar, shake well.

But either of those might be more trouble than they're worth.

It's also looking like the pulleys on my rear derailleur are going to bite it at about 10K, like the first set did. I'm having a hard time finding replacement wheels though. The whole RD costs $29 to replace, and I just did that last time, but since I have probably 8 to 10 months before the thing starts shifting badly again, I figured I'd try to find new wheels. I can find them for about $5 a set, but not that fit my RD.

Comments

[c0nsumer.livejournal.com]

How do you measure your chains? The standard ruler way, or did you get a feeler gauge thing?

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

Park Tools gauge. Most of my chain wear happens in the winter, when I'm checking it it's dark and the chain is filthy, I don't really want to creep around on the ground with a ruler and stretch out the greasy thing by hand.

[c0nsumer.livejournal.com]

I probably should grab one of those... Normally I just check the chain whenever I remove it for cleaning, but using a ruler is awkward at best.

[tceisele.livejournal.com]

"Even my old trick of buying recumbent chains (twice as long) and splitting them won't work"

Huh. I didn't know you could get purpose-made recumbent chains. I've just been buying two standard chains and stringing them together to make a long one. I'd always assumed that the market was limited enough that everybody else with a recumbent had to do that, too.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

Back when I was doing this, Nashbar was selling regular 7/8 speed chain for $9, and tandem/recumbent chains for $12. The tandem/recumbent chains were exactly twice as long. The only downside was you only got one master link. The chains I was using a while back caused a problem there, the master links got prone to just letting go if you reused them, but the current batch of KMC chains (what Nashbar sells as theirs) have master links that I've had good luck reusing; I think the one that's on there now has been there for the last 3 chains.

Actually I just did some looking around, and Niagara Cycle Works still has KMC Z51 chains for $7.88. Just as well since pretty much everyone who's ordered from Nashbar for the last few months has had their credit card numbers stolen. I think I'll order elsewhere for a while.

[c0nsumer.livejournal.com]

Do you know anything more about the Nashbar CC stuff? That'd fit with the problems I had earlier in the year.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

Here's a lengthy discussion. Seems VERY common - however, it's likely that the problem really was a Heartland clearinghouse breach. It seems like Heartland had active snoops (compromised systems) and fraudsters were getting card numbers almost real-time.

http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=525441

Even though it was a Heartland breach, it's still true that Nashbar knew there were serious issues and didn't switch clearinghouses.