here's a weird opinion, I will no longer remove my chain and soak in solvent to get it clean. I only would do that once a year anyway but I've decided not to do that practice anymore. Why you scream? Because I ran into an individual who many years ago knew a guy who worked in a bicycle chain factory. He claimed that the factory prelubes the chain, and when a user soaks it in solvent you remove most if not all the factory lube inside the chain, then you relube, but when you relube the oil does not go into the inside of the chain well at all. Thus you leave the chain less protected. His advice was to use only a chain cleaning machine to get the outside dirt off then relube and the chain will last longer.
I also heard of this before in other sources and knew a few people who practiced this, so I'm not taking the word of one guy, but it does seem interesting.
I know when I use to deep clean chain every month vs using a chain cleaning machine and then only doing a deep soak cleaning once a year I noticed no advantage to deep cleaning once a month in chain life. That's why I stopped deep cleaning to only once a year. Since I got a new chain on two of my bikes this spring, and started using Chain-L #50 lube only on those two chains I've decided never to deep clean those chains to see what happens. So far with about 2,500 miles on one of the chains I've experienced no chain wear according to the Park tool, but this could be due to the Chain-L lube more then deep cleaning or lack thereof. But in order for this to work I have to follow the directions that Chain-L provides.
Here's a letter written to Lennard Zinn about this:
Dear Lennard,
You probably will get a few of these, but how do recommend cleaning a chain on the bike? I have yet to find a better way than to remove the chain and clean it in parts washer or H2O bottle filled with citrus degreaser. Vigorously shake said bottle, rinse in hot water, and voila! Clean chain.
Paul
Dear Paul,
I recommend wiping and lubing your chain after every ride. Then it rarely gets dirty enough to need cleaning.
When it does get dirty, a chain cleaner like this works great. (picture of a chain cleaning machine)
The way pro team mechanics do it, by scrubbing it on the bike with a brush, gets solvent all over the place but obviously very effective, since you never see a cleaner bike than the bikes ready to race each day in an event like the Tour de France, no matter how sloppy it was the day before. And those guys do not remove chains for cleaning. In fact, Shimano aborted its planned inclusion of a master link with its Dura-Ace 7900 chains because pro team mechanics couldn’t see the point.
Lennard
Here's an interesting follow up topic about that from Zinn:
http://velonews.competitor.com/2008/...ollow-up_73002
But regardless what you do here's some information that some may find useful others not so useful in regards to Simple Green:
http://velonews.competitor.com/2005/...e-green-2_9216
Anyway, as you all have already noticed, there's a variety of different opinions on this subject. For years the school of thought was to remove the chain and deep clean it once a month. I'm just wondering if we bought into a something that had no proof that it worked, or maybe the old style chains that used bushings it was necessary to deep clean but the newer bushingless is not required but we still think it's required?
Anyway just a thought.