Guh, bike part prices

[johnridley]

I've been paying about $6 for bike chains, but I haven't bought any for a couple of years; I bought about 5 of them a few years back when they were on sale ($6 instead of $10).

I just went to price them again, and the CHEAP chains are $20 now, and go on sale for $15. Ugh. I go through one every 4 or 5 months.

I still have a couple more new ones sitting in the parts box, so I'll hold off and see if I can't find a sale. Or maybe usable chains at department stores on clearance.

It's almost enough for me to start thinking about running my drivetrain to destruction - I have a dozen old chains hanging in the garage, I could line them up by how worn out they are, and start swapping to the least-worn-out chain once a month or so. Heck, I could probably go for 5 years like that. All it would do would be to wreck my cassette and chainring, so at the end I could just replace the whole drivetrain and start over. I might even be able to just flip all the cogs over and start again (with new chains) - I haven't tried that with the current setup.

Comments

[backrubbear.livejournal.com]

Any idea why the prices have jumped so substantially?

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

Actually, now that I've looked around, it appears to be just isolated to the store I have been using. Other places are still selling chains for $8 to $10. Maybe Nashbar just doesn't want to sell chains anymore.