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I've put 16 months into my Eagle 12 Speed chainset. I'm considering replacing my cassette and chain and thinking why not keep it until the end of the year? What's the worst that can happen? The only thing I can think of is that by that time I may need to replace my chainring as well?
I'd expect to wear out multiple chains on a single cassette.
Try a new chain and if it works then stick with it, if it skips then you've probably left it too long already and you can just pop the old one back on and wear it all out together.
In the olden days I'd run cassettes and chains together till they were both very dead. But, then, in the olden days an XT cassette was about £35. Now they're more like £100 I'd be tempted to be a bit more careful.
I used to turn over d35 cassettes and £15 chains a lot more often to protect £150 worth of chain rings. Would still manage a couple of chains per cassette.
No, the cassette is the most expensive part and the chainring the cheapest.
Old habits die hard though so I'm currently cycling 4 chains on one cassette but on my second chainring in that time.
12 speed SRAM chains come out as very durable in tests so worth a bit of effort to keep it clean and lubed for the sake of the 3 figure cassette.
However, if the chain and cassette are already goosed, might as well run it all until it does.
I’m currently cycling 4 chains on one cassette
What's the thinking here then? Cassette wears more slowly if the chain on it is newer for longer?
When I had 9 and 10 speed I would run it into the ground and then finish the winter 🙂 Now that cassettes are as expensive as they are, I keep an eye on chains and replace at about 1.
When I did the regular chain swap thing, I found the 3 chains to one cassette ratio about right. Now I'm onto letting it all wear out cassettes are lasting far longer than they used to, though I do now have a winter singlespeed which takes the brunt of the really shitty, high wear conditions.
I left it too long until I changed the chain on my Shimano 12 speed and it skipped in the smaller gears, but I found out you can buy the smaller cogs separately so I bought a 14 16 and 18t and it's all working fine with a new chain now.
Advice from my LBS when talking about my road bike was to change the chain more regularly this year, as they had no idea when Ultegra cassettes would be available again, or how much they might be.
The worst that can happen is/are:
Worn out Chain rings as well as cassette. Or a snapped chain.
3x chains to a cassette - I then run the third chain until it slips / shifting degrades.
Chains are cheap, cassettes are not, so for the sake of say £30 bung on a new chain.
I just had to replace my £300 ! rear cassette, managed to get just 2,106 km out of it. Ouch, that's not cheap, but on the bright side, all of those km were bloody brilliant.
Going forward I will bung a new chain on once a year and see if that helps.
A snapped chain is no joke especially because it will fail when you're really stomping on it. You could crash and/or get seriously injured.
I got 2250 miles out of an SLX 12 speed cassette and chain on my Rail.
This time around I'm on NX and will be alternating a SLX chain and an NX chain every 100km or so. It'll be interesting to see how it fairs.
I want to replace the 2x set up on hardtail and am doing minimal maintenance to the crank & cassette as I don't want to replace them if they've still got life in them.
In the olden days I’d run cassettes and chains together till they were both very dead. But, then, in the olden days an XT cassette was about £35. Now they’re more like £100 I’d be tempted to be a bit more careful.
+1
I've got 3 chains to rotate on my GX cassette. I kinda assume that doing that, combined with putoline, and then run into the ground, that the drivechain will probably outlive the bike or at least things like mechs and chainrings that die on impacts at which point a new drivechain might look palatable as a whole.
I run at least three chains to a cassette on 1x11 systems - swap them out soon after 145.9mm Normally i lose a couple of teeth on the second or third highest cog on a SRAM cassette and then it's time to change. On my commuting bike i'll replace the two smallest cogs with new AliExpress ones when they start to slip as well.