Chain rotating

HoldingOn wrote:

I have actually played around with my cadence, to see if a higher cadence wears out the chain quicker, as well as how it affects my speed)

And I have, i use a very low cadence and guess what that has done to my speed!

HoldingOn wrote:

As with both cycling and running, I think natural rhythm comes into play a lot. I've spent some time trying to force myself into a higher cadence when running, but have actually found it easier to increase my cycling cadence.

High v low cadence cycling has been discussed for decades with AFAIK no definitive answer. Self-selected cadence seems to be as effective as anything.

However, it may be worth practising higher cadences - it may help you cope better with wide-range single chainring gearing where there are large steps between adjacent gears). And there is definitely evidence that low ~50 rpm cadence intervals can bring fitness improvements.

I suspect with running that your stride length (and therefore step rate) is much harder to change than the speed at which you twiddle pedals while seated on a bike. For anyone wanting to know more I'd refer to Alex Hutchinson's articles at Outside Online and @sweatscience on twitter.

HoldingOn wrote:

Interesting - I hadn't considered that side of the wear.

As someone else has mentioned - it does sound like quite a bit of faff for moderate benefit.

I think I would benefit more from improving my chain cleaning process. bikes' idea of a jar of spirits/degreaser with a mesh in the bottom, followed by an oil bath sounds like a good starting point. Depending how I go, I might then started experimenting with waxing my chain.

It's correct that chains don't stretch elastically but get slightly longer as the pins wear in their housings. This lengthening, though, can still be accurately portrayed by calling the chain "stretched". It has got longer, see? The stretching mode is a wear-mode not an elastic-mode.

Shaking chains in a bottle of degreaser won't get all of the damaging-grinding stuff out of the chain. The stuff wearing the pins in their housings is trapped in the teeny-weeny gaps created and will resist a mere shake-the-bottle dislodgement. I know this by applying that technique then giving the chain a proper shake in an ultrsonic cleaner. Loh! - a blackening of the waters, with their clearing revealing a sediment of fine black grunge now removed from them pin-housings.

Nor is an oil bath a good way to lubricate a chain.  The oil is sticky and will immediately attract the dust in the air, from the road and from the rock-mud encountered by gravel & MTB rides. It does keep the rust off - but rust isn't really the enemy of chains.

Dry lubes (including various waxes) seem best. Best of all are tested to be those which evaporate or rub off to leave the magic slippery molecules coating the chain innards - those pins and their housings where the chain wear causing "stretch" occurs.

Silca chain lubes get the best test results in various on-line reviews. How accurate are the reviews, though? Many might be paid-for adverts in disguise!  To test the claims, I'm using some Silca stuff on one of me bike chains now. 150k so far with no sign of black gunk or chain-creak. Supposedly I can do another 350K before the next lube (one little drop per chain roller).

We'll see.

HoldingOn wrote:

I think I would benefit more from improving my chain cleaning process. bikes' idea of a jar of spirits/degreaser with a mesh in the bottom, followed by an oil bath sounds like a good starting point. Depending how I go, I might then started experimenting with waxing my chain.

I picked up an ultrasonic cleaner a couple of years ago, and use that with a degreaser. After getting fed up with paying £15 a litre "bike tax" for the "bike brands", I took a recommendation from a fellow traveller on road.cc and now use the Screwfix No Nonsense degreaser at £12.99 for 5 litres. A light agitation with a paintbrush in 5:1 water solution, followed by 20 minutes at 40 deg C in the ultrasonic tank works wonders. 

Here's my pre-RideLondon service from last week:

I use spirits instead of degreaser as spirits are soluble with oil which is preferable to potentially leaving some degreaser behind which will interfere with the oil. I'm careful to remove as much oil as possible so the chain attracts less grime. I can't be bothered with an ultrasonic cleaner.

I like the idea of wax but I had no luck with it, it didn't seem to withstand wet conditions at all. Not the way I used it, anyway.

bikes wrote:

I use spirits instead of degreaser as spirits are soluble with oil which is preferable to potentially leaving some degreaser behind which will interfere with the oil. I'm careful to remove as much oil as possible so the chain attracts less grime. I can't be bothered with an ultrasonic cleaner. I like the idea of wax but I had no luck with it, it didn't seem to withstand wet conditions at all. Not the way I used it, anyway.

Ha ha - you will discover, one way or another, that "can't be bothered" is a far inferior approach to having "luck". Why do a thing badly when its much easier to do it well? Also, the well-done gets the good result rather than the other sort.

One might ask about the roads you ride; and when. One could then be sure to avoid inclusion in any incidents involving your "unlucky" steering of the bicycle, as well as those during which you "can't be bothered" to attend to the other traffic about the place (or the kerbstones). 

Do you mean that it's much easier to use an ultrasonic cleaner and wax a chain than it is to use jars of spirits and oil as per my method?

Perhaps I used the wrong type of wax when I tried it. I immersed a degreased chain in a slow cooker of candle wax but it didn't withstand more than a few hours of riding in the rain before becoming noisy.

http://pardo.net/bike/pic/fail-004/000.html

explains.

Welsh boy wrote:

As far as I can see chain roatation is a load of rubbish.  You use one chain until it is partially worn, take it off and use another chain (or chins) for a while.  You then put the partially worn chain back on and use it a bit longer until it is a bit mor worn then you take it back off and use the other partially worn chains.  Eventually you get to the point where you realise that you have a totally worn out chain and bin it, the other cahin(s) in the roatation soon follow and so you end up replacing all 3 chains and, more importantly, all 3 chains have been used on the transmission until the point at which they are fully worn (streteched if you prefer that term).  Expalin to me, with proof, not anecdotes, how that is better than using one chain at a time.

I'm not a proponent of it, but I'd say the idea is to try to match the wearing of the chains with the wearing of the cassette. Without chain rotation, you end up matching a brand new chain with a part-worn cassette (e.g. after replacing the first chain you used with it), but with rotation you're using a part-worn chain with it. I don't see that it should make much difference though.

I guess the maths goes like this: You could either keep replacing your chain with a new one before each chain gets too worn (<1/8" stretch over 12 inches?) and keep that going until a new chain skips on your worn cassette (after 4 chain replacements?) at which point you put your old chain back on and run both the cassette and chain into the ground. Or you buy 3 chains at once and rotate them and let the cassette get really, really worn. The idea being that a very stretched chain won't skip on a very worn cassette. So, to your point; you don't throw out your rotation of old worn chains, you keep using them. I have no proof for you though!

It could make sense in a context where you're not sure to find replacements for cassette and chainrings easily and dont want to lug them around. Otherwise not worth the bother.
Faffing around with deep-cleaning and -waxing not worth the bother either. Keep reasonably clean and oiled and replace when worn, done.

HoldingOn wrote:

That makes sense.

I purchased a chain-wear-indicator and its been quite good, but I feel I am going through chains too quickly. I hoped there was some "trick" I was missing.

I suspect I need to up my bike maintainence process and give the chain a deep clean, rather than a cursory brush.

The trick to making chains last longer is definitely keeping them as clean as possible. Wax instead of oil is recommended as it doesn't turn into a grinding paste by sticking to the grit and dust. If you use oil, then you'll be wanting to clean it as often as possible and definitely before re-oiling it.

"Wax instead of oil is recommended as it doesn't turn into a grinding paste by sticking to the grit and dust."

The stuff that's on the chain when new is far more akin to an oil than to a wax. The black gunk from worn metal appears on a new chain within a few dozen kilometres, I don't think that that's something to do with what you put on the chain yourself.

marmotte27 wrote:

"Wax instead of oil is recommended as it doesn't turn into a grinding paste by sticking to the grit and dust." The stuff that's on the chain when new is far more akin to an oil than to a wax. The black gunk from worn metal appears on a new chain within a few dozen kilometres, I don't think that that's something to do with what you put on the chain yourself.

New chains come with oil on them. To get the benefits of wax, you have to remove as much of that oil as possible and ultrasonic cleaners are sometimes used for that puprose. Once the chain is as oil-free as possible is when you put the wax/wax-based lube on them (it's not likely to stick to an oiled chain) and that should remain relatively clean. The main disadvantage of wax treatments is that they don't last as long, especially in the wet.

HoldingOn wrote:

Perhaps I wax the chain during the drier summer months and oil it when it starts to get wet again.

There does seem to be one area of agreement though - I'm definitely not cleaning my chain sufficiently!

Probably best to not mix the two methods - treat yourself to a different chain.

hawkinspeter wrote:

HoldingOn wrote:

Perhaps I wax the chain during the drier summer months and oil it when it starts to get wet again.

There does seem to be one area of agreement though - I'm definitely not cleaning my chain sufficiently!

Probably best to not mix the two methods - treat yourself to a different chain...

...or three!

I'd say trust chain manufacturers to put the right stuff on their chains...

marmotte27 wrote:

I'd say trust chain manufacturers to put the right stuff on their chains...

By all means do what you want, but chain manufacturers don't care about cleaning their chains after a ride.

marmotte27 wrote:

I'd say trust chain manufacturers to put the right stuff on their chains...

The manufacturers are not interested in tribology so much as corrosion. They prep their chains for shelf life in the supply chain.