Morning all

I’ve got a set of the above running on my Eagle drivetrain. Everything is running nice and smooth for the vast majority of the time.

However, occasionally, the chain will skip off of the bottom jockey wheel and jam itself against the side of the cage, or the chain pops off the top jockey wheel and runs on top of the teeth.

By occasionally I mean once in 80 miles of predominately off road riding (at the Loch Ness 360 yesterday.)

Chain / cassette / chainring are all new.

Any ideas? Anyone else experiencing this phenomenon?

If they are the same ones I got – the metal narrow/wide ones – I got the same. Luckily I’m replacing the mech anyway so they’ll go in the bin. They should have a ridge around them to stop that historically known issue of the chain dropping to the side – if not replace with some that do.

At least the top one is directional, try turning it around. Otherwise I managed to tune mine out but in middle certain gears the chain still rumbles over the top.

Cheers Kryton, I’ll try running the top one the other way round. I hadn’t thought of that.

I had this issue and I filed the wide teeth to the same profile as the narrow ones making them standard toothed jockey wheels. No problems since.

had something similar, but i think it wa JRC wheels..
i think.. the superstar seem better
mine kept coming off the top and into the gap between the cage and the jockey..
i think i end up squeezing my cage with a pair of pliers and looking at the way the jockeys were sat etc…

Interesting, mine have been fine for a few thousand miles

Is there a stiff link in the chain that is somehow making the chain ‘jump’ and then get stuck with the jockeys wheels out of sync with the chain gaps so the chain doesn’t sit on the teeth?

Or is there something else that make make the chain jump a tooth on the jockey wheel to not allow the chain to sit properly on them? That would then mean the chain would run on top of the teeth.

I had this issue and I filed the wide teeth to the same profile as the narrow ones making them standard toothed jockey wheels. No problems since.

This makes sense to me, I narrowed my issue down to the “wide” tooth not falling into the gap in the chain-link immediately.

Is there a stiff link in the chain

Nope, no stiff links.

Filing the teeth also makes sense to me as well if I don’t have any joy with running the top jockey the other way round.

do teh jockey wheels have the ‘crap ledge’ around them? i found that on my sram mech i`d get the same issue when mud n crap piled up on teh ledge around the lower jockey and the chain cant site properly causing spacign issues for teh narrow-wide bit.

i bought non-narrow wide jockeys and it helped. such a crap design.

IMHO, they’re garbage. There’s no need for N/W on a jockey wheel and it will almost inevetiablly jump a link if you’re rattling though rocks etc. A few of my mates and I tried them and all came to the same conclusion. As did a few other STWers.

Superstar Sram Eagle Jockey wheel issues???

It was an answer looking for a problem.

P-Jay
Free Member

IMHO, they’re garbage. There’s no need for N/W on a jockey wheel and it will almost inevetiablly jump a link if you’re rattling though rocks etc. A few of my mates and I tried them and all came to the same conclusion. As did a few other STWers.

Add me to that list. Swapped for “normal” Uberbike ones and issue went away

standard is narrowide? from what i remember

I see.

How about the Garbaruk ones? Are they Narrow / Wide? They don’t appear to be:

No mention of Narrow/Wide in the description that I can see.

alan1977
Free Member

standard is narrowide? from what i remember

Yup, and work better than SS for whatever reason.

How about the Garbaruk ones? Are they Narrow / Wide? They don’t appear to be:

The one on the right looks like it’s trying to be N-W

Yup, fitted some recently to replace OEM pulleys that had shot bearings. Couldn’t get them working at all – constantly dropping the chain from the lower wheel despite endless fiddling. Ended up speaking to Superstar who agreed to take them back and replaced with a new set of OEM pulleys. Worked perfectly out of the box.

This drivetrain was worn to 0.75% (we’re re-running three old chains back through it before replacing the whole lot) and I wonder if it would have worked better with a brand new setup, but there’s no question that the OEM pulleys were far more tolerant and worked without fuss.

As a note, unlike Shimano pulleys (but consistently with nearly everything SRAM make), the bearings were shagged long before the teeth were worn out. They are cheaply and easily replaced on their own, so in future I would just replace the bearings for a few quid, rather than the whole jockey wheels for upwards of £35. For reference, I’ve never known a Shimano pulley with a worn out bearing – at least, not before the teeth are completely gone!

I had shot bearings in my SRAM orginals so replaced with SS which were fine for a while but then persistently dropping the chain or skipping teeth. I still had the original SRAM wheels so just pressed in some new bearings but (I think) one of them wasn’t running freely so I’ve ended up with one SRAM wheel and one Superstar but it works just fine like that.

so I’ve ended up with one SRAM wheel and one Superstar but it works just fine like that.

Stab in the dark – the upper (guide) is Superstar, the lower (tension) is OEM…?

Video of mine in case it helps anyone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6_3r8m4yPA

I think that, at the end of the day, these pulleys aren’t Superstar’s finest hour. And I say that as someone who has bought a fair amount of bits from them over the years, as I like to support UK manufacturing. Their chainrings have been excellent – they wear well, and I’ve never seen one throw a chain. I think that, in this case, they’ve gone for very tight tolerances on something that SRAM probably designed to be a bit sloppy, and as a result they are a bit too fussy about the drive train that they will work with.

Video of mine in case it helps anyone

That’s exactly what mine are doing, although they will go for miles and miles, up and down through all of the gears, and then suddenly the chain does exactly what is shown on the bottom jockey wheel in the vid.

Stab in the dark – the upper (guide) is Superstar, the lower (tension) is OEM…?

I couldn’t remember so just checked and…. no it’s the other way round.

I think the Nukeproof ones aren’t narrow-wide, so would eliminate the issue without having to resort to a file?

One thing to note: the SRAM OEM ones are also narrow-wide…

Drivetrain worn to 0.75% three chains olds your problem… who would have thought?🤣

If you want to know my Personal opinion. The narrow wide bit is pointless marketing but it’s what most people want. They actually do nothing and cause no problems. Sure tinfoil hat time you can point at it but it’s not your actual problem.

If they skip or do anything weird your setup is worn to a different length than new. So until you grind the new superstar jockeys into your knackered setup that’s your problem…

Sold over ten thousand sets. Minimal problems other than that which isn’t anything to do with the jockeys

Neil SuperstarComponents

Drivetrain worn to 0.75% three chains olds your problem… who would have thought?

Yet 100% fine with a set of brand-new, OEM jockey wheels…? As I said, not criticising the product, but if it’s that much more intolerant of chain wear (which does happen in the real world!) then users are going to have problems…

Soft plastic and smaller indent for the chain roller. This makes them more tolerant to worn out mating parts but worse for alot of other reasons

If I made the jockeys completely round it would alway match the chain wear and you wouldn’t have a problem🤦‍♂️

Neil SuperstarComponents

Drivetrain worn to 0.75% three chains olds your problem… who would have thought?🤣

Nope. Chain / Chainring / Cassette all brand new.