New Chain and cassette
 

I replaced my chain last week and placed my another wheel on the bike today. I went for a short ride and a few of the cassettes have a skip at times. However, I probably only have 100-200 miles on the cassette from the this wheel.

I was wondering if I ride this wheel all week will the chain conform to the "Older" cassette that has a few hundred miles on it or do I need to replace the cassette with a brand new one?

It's just a shame to think that I have to get rid of this one.

Did you readjust your rear derailleur when you changed the wheel? Even supposedly identical wheels will often vary somewhat due to manufacturing tolerances. Here is a good procedure, follow it from beginning to end without skipping any steps. Don't just "fiddle" with adjustments hoping to get it right. http://www.parktool.com/blog/repair-...nts-derailleur

I have it set fairly well, I just think its the two sprockets that I probably used the most even though the cassette doesn't have many miles. I hate to place an entire new cassette on the wheel for this sake. any suggestions?

A cassette wit only a few nundred miles on it should not skip with a new chain. You should be able to use a cassette for the full life of 2-3 chains, if you don't leave a single in use beyond the point where it has .5% elongation.

Be sure you understand the difference between chain skip and ghost shifting. When chain skip occurs, the chian stays on the intended sprocket, but the chain skip over the top of the teeth and won't transmit power, under a heavy load. With ghost shifting, the chain won't stay on the intended sprocket, due to misadjustment or misalignment of the RD.

thanks dave for the info, i do have ghost shifts at times and I always think this is due to the age of the campy shifters being 15 yrs old. however, the shift under load was happening in the two sprockets toward the top next to the larger one near the spokes.

do you mean a single cassette in use beyond the point? Or do you mean the chain? The new chain now has 200 miles on it and the cassette on there now only has a few hundred miles on it but looks new. could a skip on the two cassettes under load be due to adjustment?

I have another wheel with a brand new cassette on it and I will place on the bike tomorrow to see if it does the same thing then I will know if its adjustment.

It isn't necessarily the amount of miles on the cassette, but the miles on the chain it was used with. A worn chain will rapidly age a sprocket to match it's wear condition, so if your cassette has only a few hundred miles on it, but they were all with an older, worn chain, it's possible that it's worn like one with a few thousand miles on it would be. Even so, it would have to be a very hard 200 miles, like hard climbing in mountainous terrain.

Since your chain is new, it's fairly easy to check the condition of the sprockets. You can do this on or off the bike. Wrap a chain 1/2 of the way around the sprocket and use the tip of a screwdriver to lift the chain out in the middle of the wrap. A new chain on a new sprocket will barely lift away. With wear of either, the amount you can lift increases as the chain is sloppy enough to move in from the sides. There's no hare and fast rule, but if you can see much more than 3/16" daylight between the chain and sprocket (with a new chain) odds are the sprocket is worn enough to skip under load.

To answer your question, yes the chain sometimes will dress a sprocket and stop skipping, but it's a slow process (when it works) and odds are you'll be annoyed enough with it to quit before you succeed. So if you have no alternative, you might stay with it long enough for the skipping to resolve by itself.

thanks guys for your help, i placed a new cassette on the wheel and no problems with skipping, I guess its the cassette,
By the way, what do most of you guys do when you have a racing wheel and a training wheel with keeping both wheels relevant with regard to the cassettes?

There are three approaches.

1- try to rotate back and forth routinely. If you can't switch wheels, at least let each cassette see it's share of miles.
2- use chains with reusable connectors, and keep the chains and cassettes as married pairs. This is the best answer if one wheel/cassette sees 10x the mileage of the other.
3- rotate multiple (2-4 or more if there are multiple bikes) chains between the various bikes or on the same bike, switching out every 500-1,000 miles, or whatever makes sense for your needs. This keeps all the chains comparatively young, and minimizes wear disparity on all the components.

One of the reasons that most pro and semi-pro teams don't have to worry about issues on their pool of wheels is that they usually toss chains at about 1,000 miles. Kind of wasteful for the normal world, but the sponsor's footing the bill. Years ago when I worked with a racing team (amateur) we kept about 30 chains rotating among the various bikes, pulling chains off every week and using whatever was up next, in the pool. That allowed us to switch wheels & freewheels (I said it was years ago) at will, and any rider could borrow any other rider's wheel in a pinch without worry about compatibility.

That's not 100% proof a new cassette was needed. The "200 mile" cassette could sit slightly inboard or outboard of the original cassette, causing the skipping. The newest cassette might sit closer to the original cassette and not cause skipping. Different brands, years & models can vary a little bit from one to the next.

That would be a trim or gear adjustment issue, and (I think) the OP mentioned earlier that he checked or that.