So over the last 6 months I’ve recorded all my mileages and what oil I’ve used to get some ‘real world’ mileage info on chain wear…sad I know!

My first chain lasted 541miles using Rohloff’s proprietary ‘best’ & expensive oil.
My second lasted 482 miles using ProGold for 75% of it’s life and then Profi Dry lub.

The facts:

IZUMI 1/8th silver track chain on Rohloff equipped hardtail i.e. a straight chainline 100% of the time.

My local trails have more or less been muddy the last 6 months with maybe 10% of the runs being dry & dusty.

The trails are 75% in forestry natural trails with 1 x Glen tress trip over this period. The rest is either road or man made hard packed stuff with very little grit.

After 95% of all rides I hose down the bike including some specific & focussed attention on the chain firing the hose into all the links. I’ve only use detergents / cleaner once on each chain after about 300 miles.

I allow it to dry and then apply oil to both the rollers and links. I’ll wipe the chain after to remove any excess.

I always use a dry lub as mud doesn’t stick to it and become a grinding paste.

I change the chain just as it reaches the 0.75% wear mark. I’m still using the same sprocket and chainring after maybe 5 chains so the whole 0.75% thing seems to be working well.

I’m just over 75KG and a spinner as opposed to a grinder so not putting HUGE loads through the drive chain.

I can’t believe how little wear I’m getting considering the alleged durability of the track chains and what I read from other users.

What’s the hives experience of wear? Cleaning / hosing the thing down too much?

“…firing the hose into all the links… I allow it to dry”

I bet it’s not actually dry right inside the links.

Cleaning / hosing the thing down too much?

Yup, most dry lubes work best if allowed to accumulate over time IME, that’s why they instruct to put at least two coats on the first time.

And what chain? KMC seem good, SRAM are usually panned.

But, ask yourself what is the point? I replace SS chains when they snap, or when I want to put a different gear on and can’t find any spare links. And often it’s just some old worn 9s chain from the spares box. There’s probably a marginal drop in efficiency from running chains that are 1%+ worn, but it’s not detectable to me and I’m still getting ~1500miles from alloy chainrings before turning them and running them backwards, and never binned 1/8 sprocket!

Interesting figures. I’ve definitely had much higher mileage than that out of track chains (on a single speed), but then I’m a skinflint and only replace chains when they’re dead (obviously this my be a false economy re ring/sprocket wear going by your experience!). My regime varies according to season. If it’s dry then it’s based on keeping the chain as clean as possible – so degrease and clean and lubing with dry lube, then I’ll just top up the dry lube if the chain looks clean enough.

If it’s wet then I focus on keeping the chain lubricated and tend not to care if it’s covered in gooey lube. If it gets cleaned it gets cleaned properly with a good degrease and getting as dry as possible before relubing with a sticky wet lube.

I never hose a chain down unless it’s been degreased thoroughly first – bikes tend to be properly cleaned or not cleaned at all. Singlespeeds have spend many months muddy! In both regimes I avoid wiping the chain if it’s at all dirty as I find it just shoves the muck deeper into the links.

I get at least 2500miles out of a chain/cassette combo. Gets changed whether it needs it or not at that point 😆

5 chains!
I had to leave my chain on my OO Fatty I got in December because when I checked it after 1000 miles, it was past the 1% mark.
I am now close to 4000 miles and although the gear changes can be a bit sloppy (they weren’t great to start with!), it still isn’t slipping.
I put my Fatty through quite a lot of hard big gear riding which includes hard fast chaingangs, so it hasn’t had an easy life.

You have to weigh up how much all the chains are costing, compared to changing everything after it starts slipping and becoming unusable.

Fair point re allowing the lub to build up. I always worked on the premise that I should try and get any dirt off the chain before applying new lub as the old dirt will get dragged into the rollers and create a very effective grinding paste…maybe I’ll give that a go going forward.

And what chain?

It’s an 1/8th Izumi silver track chain

There’s probably a marginal drop in efficiency from running chains that are 1%+ worn

It’s not the efficiency that bother me, it’s the chain ring / sprocket wear.

It would have been interesting to see what mileage you got with no lube. Just cleaning it.

But as I spend about £20 on a chain I’m happy changing it once a year without even measuring it.

I had to leave my chain on my OO Fatty I got in December because when I checked it after 1000 miles, it was past the 1% mark.
I am now close to 4000 miles and although the gear changes can be a bit sloppy (they weren’t great to start with!), it still isn’t slipping.

4k since December, that’s some good going on one bike!

I don’t think I ever get quite that from chains but I do adopt a similar philosophy of running the chain until it becomes unbearable, which usually means replacing them around May once winter has done it’s worst.

It would have been interesting to see what mileage you got with no lube. Just cleaning it.

On the basis I’ve trashed chains in a single ride when the lubes washed off I’d guess a clean chain would last ~20 miles before it reached 0.75?

I got 3k out of my last chain, never bothered cleaning it only replaced because it had stretched so much I could not move it any further back in the horizontal dropouts. With single speed you can get away with very little care

Double post

Your running a hub gear…chain wear is a non-issue!

I’ve an Alfine 8 on a Works Components narrow/wide, on the 1% side of the checker, it still has enough play to move 2mm back and forth! 😆

And its not even a tight chain, it’s got an old mech as a tensioner as it’s on a full suss, so it could slip on the cogs if it wanted.

So I’ve just read Sheldon Browns article on chain wear and after taking my old Izumi chain to bits the chain is a ‘bushed’ chain.

linky

From what I understand, a bushed chain makes it more difficult for the oil / lube to get to the pins which lie inside the rollers BUT it keeps more of the dirt out.

I think I’ll be ‘cleaning’ it less often and just applying lube on top of the old lube to see what happens.

KMC do a couple of bushless chains so if the above doesn’t produce longer wear times I’ll give one of them a go.

Your running a hub gear…chain wear is a non-issue!

This.
Ride it till it snaps.

I can recommend my regime of cleaning the chain with kitchen towel (or similar), applying a thick wet lube and then wiping it off before riding. I probably clean and lube the chain every few rides or when it’s making gritty noises or has got really filthy wet and muddy. I use those KMC gold chains (they’re very corrosion resistant) and they’re usually pretty sparkling (unlike the rest of my bike!)

I can recommend my regime of shoving some oil on my SS chain

… and that’s it pretty much. I guess I could wipe the chain more often when the mud is still wet (probably once every 6-8 rides in the winter) but mostly I just shove some oil on it when I feel like it. FWIW I’m using Aldi engine oil that I bought a few years ago – 5 litres sure goes a long way 😳

Course, it’s evil if you touch it, but I don’t

alfine hardtail (main offroad bike) lasted 5 1/2 years until I changed sprockets and cheap whipperman chain.

Alfine road bike is on between 9000 to 21000 km over 4 years and on the original stuff still.

WTF are you doing? throw that chain wear thing away.

Doesn’t matter what you do to it, oil, cleaning etc. Grind it through mud and it won’t last long!

Solution?
Run 9 speed. £22 for chain AND cassette from CRC. Don’t bother to measure it. Run until it skips. Change. Repeat.

I don’t get why people get so obsessed about drive chain cleanliness, especially on mountain bikes.. Ok you might squeeze 10% more longevity out of components with a strict degreasing and re lubing regimen after every ride, as opposed to just wiping the muck off and applying lube when needed, but chains and cassettes will wear out, the time spent fannying about and buying buckets of lube and solvents is far more costly than than the gain to be had for the relatively short increase in longevity of consumable components.

I change the chain just as it reaches the 0.75% wear mark. I’m still using the same sprocket and chainring after maybe 5 chains so the whole 0.75% thing seems to be working well.

+1

I’m on my 3rd chain on my FS, same cassette/chainring/expander (only new mech ‘cos I twatted the old one).

But rarely clean my bike beyond the odd wash and a rag-wipe on the chain.

Are you sure you haven’t worn out the chain wear checker? 😆

I would say clean it less or less aggressively (and maybe let it wear a little more), I used to get carried away with cleaning.
Now I just oil it a small amount often (Prolink Progold Extreme) and when dirty spray some degreaser on a rag hold the rag around the chain and pedal the chain through my hand\rag to get rid of the dirt. After trying a silly amount of oils i’m sticking with Prolink, stays pretty clean and when it does get dirty the muck wipes off real easy.

PeterPoddy – Member

Doesn’t matter what you do to it, oil, cleaning etc. Grind it through mud and it won’t last long!

Solution?
Run 9 speedErr, OP is about a rohloff

PP – I don’t wash my bike (well I’d say less than 2x a year) – a straight chainline doesn’t care about chainware.

I have no idea how many miles I get out of mine- enough that I have no idea. The putoline chain wax keeps ’em going for a looong time though- occasional deep cleans and relubes.

What peterpoddy said.

Throw your chain wear tool away – most of them just measure roller play anyway.

Then run your chain until it snaps or you run out of adjustment.

Does roller play differ from chain wear? The rollers on my ‘1% plus 2mm play’ chain are very loose, they have started to tick over the chainring when I’m pedalling.

Part and parcel I believe, you get roller play and lateral play, how many miles has it done?

Does roller play differ from chain wear?

good luck googling that ! 😉

Options are pretty much split on binary options:

a) No, only pin wear matters and chain checkers are mostly chain-marketing tools as they exaggerate the apparent elongation

b) Yes, worn bushings must impair equal tooth engagement and at least accelerate wear on the sprocket as a result, even if the chain isn’t at all elongated

I tend to find that poor shifting (that I mostly put down to lateral play) makes me change geary-bike chains well before they measure up as elongated, but there you go

Right, I have some numbers for you! My Spitfire has done 1300 miles, alternating two KMC X10L gold chains. They get swapped back and forth every few months and get the paraffin degrease and clean treatment then. Using a chain checker they’re both well short of 0.75% wear, in fact on the less worn chain I can barely get the chain checker in at all. That’s with a narrow wide ring up front and XT cassette out back.

3 things here that are my opinion only so don’t shout at me (although I am of course correct as always)

1 – Dry chain lubes are a waste of time – I don’t think they give adequate lubrication or rust protection even in dry weather never mind wet. First puddle you see and its all gone.

2 – Use a wet lube and plenty of it – yes it will attract dirt which is why at the end of a dirty ride use a CHAIN CLEANING DEVICE….even if you don’t bother to clean any other part of your bike. Don’t bother with expensive degreaser in the chain cleaner – just whack some muck off in there or even washing up liquid – it will get your chain looking like new in just a few turns of the handle and the whole process takes about 2 minutes.

3 – As has been said already, throw away your chain wear measuring device – Its an expensive waste of time. You will find yourself replacing the chain in no time and the new chain will never run quite as nicely on the part worn cogs. Instead let everything wear together and replace chain cassette, chainrings and chain when they have all warn out in about 6 years time (or less depending on how often you use your bike and whether or not you clean your chain)

Simples

On my 9 speed commuter the worst I’ve had was 850 miles. Usual regime involves chucking more wet lube on top of a dirty chain and wiping the excess off with a rag. Coming to the end of my £5 selcof chains from On One though sadly. 7000 miles later and I’m on the same cassette and just replaced an outer chainring a couple of thousand miles ago.

As above I do use a chain checker but only when prompted by crappy shifting.

Run to death, bin £ark Tools chain checker, 1000s of miles on a chain and not having to bin a perfectly good cassette every 6 months unlike if I did the replace chain a couple of times in that time at .75 wear (or .5 as Park Tools tell you to do with their newer checker).

As said, just keep everything going together at the same wear level and all will be good, until it finally dies. Replace all at once yes, but you’re still replacing far less frequently and saving a lot of money.

Oh and it’s tempting to think it’s worn due to chain skipping on the cassette but 9 times out of 10 for me it’s been that the gears need re-indexing or gear cable replacing.

I always use a dry lub

use a good wet lube

I’ve just changed the HG93 on the tourer. Park says 1%, ruler says 12 1/8″ – so time to change. It’s not just the cassette, you’ll also wear out your chainrings ‘a bit sooner’. I use gearbox oil for lube. Stinks but works OK.

As said, just keep everything going together at the same wear level and all will be good, until it finally dies. Replace all at once yes, but you’re still replacing far less frequently and saving a lot of money.

Disagree.

Chain £12
Cassette £32
Chainring N/W £40
Expander £50
Jockey Wheels £10

All in £144, or by just changing the £12 chain you’ll get additional life out of all the other £ 132 components.

define additional…..no such thing as a free lunch. in my experiments even at XTR level i am quids in just letting it all wear together. Hell – id have been changing chains half way through a race….and probably use more chains than brake pads at the puffer!

how do you get an expander onto an IHG anyway ?

All in £144, or by just changing the £12 chain you’ll get additional life out of all the other £ 132 components.

Not in my experience. When I was replacing the chain as Park Tools tell me too, I’d be lucky if the new chain doesn’t skip for a start and if I get two chains out of it then I’m replacing chain and cassette together every 6 months. Now I just let it all run on and two years later I’m still on the same chain, cassette, chainring and jockeys. So on your costs, £56 every 6 months vs £94 every two years by letting it all run on (noting I don’t use an expander, but that’s not relevant).

Only reason I finally replaced mine recently was the NW ring started to drop and felt it was probably time to just do it all. Cassette and chain were actually still meshing and shifting fine, but would be worn chain on new NW ring.

maybe for your posh drivetrain 😉

Chain £12
Cassette £32 £25
Chainring N/W £40 £25 (£15 in the sale 😉 )
Expander £50
Jockey Wheels £10

so £72, 1/2 of your cost, and the ‘additional’ life is questionable, very hard to measure reliably and IME it still works out cheaper overall to not bother with the chain swapping.

Anyway the OP was about a IGH, so a single rear sprocket @£20, a single (non-NW) chainring @£15 and a chain @£5, and will go a lot longer than the normal geared setup as it won’t skip and no shifting to worry about, for him it absolutely makes sense to just grind it into the ground and replace the lot.

OP here….grinding it all out and not hosing the chain post ride is now the plan.

Because I’m sad I’ll probably still measure the chain to see how this new plan compares with the ‘pre-enlightenment’ maintenance regime.

Now the final decision…dry lube or wet? 😀