While cleaning my bike I noticed that my bottom jockey wheel is badly worn, it now resembles some kind of deadly Chinese throwing star but top jockey wheel is like new. I am surprised that the wear is so uneven and as the whole set up is only a few months old. I then checked my other bike and the jockey wheels show a similar wear pattern but nowhere near as bad and that bike has done many many more miles.

Is this wear normal? I checked with one of my riding mates and the wear on his jockey wheels are fairly even and fairly light even though he does more miles than me. Is this wear a result of my riding style, bike set up, possible damage to the rear mech or is this kind of wear pattern the norm?

I noticed the same thing on my bike a couple of years back. Stuck a kcnc jockey wheel on the bottom and not had any probs since!

Same thing here, never really worried about it.

Is it Sram?
Sram bottom jockeys wear very quickly

@ iain1775
it's Shimano XT and done about 500 miles max, probably less. Might try those KCNC jobbies on and see how that goes. I am very surprised how quickly it's worn though.

Yep that's perfectly normal. Ones a guide and the others something else 😐

Yep that's perfectly normal. Ones a guide and the others something else

One it a tension pulley – bottom, the top is a guide pulley. The bottom one wears more rapidly i.e. becomes a starfish whereas the top wears more on the outsides of the teeth 🙂

Ooh look Nipper you can get those KCNC ones in blue to go with the rest of your tarty bling 😉

Yeah, my XT rear mech has jockey wheels just like that. I've just ordered some LX replacements for £2.99 each from CRC.

Thanks for the all the replies, credit card time I guess Mmmmmm..blue tarty bling..

Don't use the KCNC wheels on the top (guide pulley) though. They don't have any side to side movement, which is why I only replaced the tension pulley with a KCNC one!