Originally Posted by
snarkypup
My Panasonic seems to me to be getting louder. I had it all tuned up and regreased when I first bought it, but the chain makes a whirring noise now when I pedal. I'm used to the quiet clicking the bike makes when I'm coasting, but the chain noise is unnerving. I had the local lbs guy look at it when he redid the tape and stem, and he said it was fine, but quiet, it ain't. Thoughts? I can't do anything to it myself, but I'd love to know if I ought to be concerned.
This is the best $11 I've spent towards chain maintenance. It makes a greasy-fussy job of holding a ruler to the chain into a simple 10-second GO/NO-GO check that could be done every day if you wanted to. I usually just do it when I oil the chain anyhow but it really speeds up things. My vision isn't what it used to be so reading a metal ruler is a lot of getting down and squinting and needing 3 arms to hold it and the bike and the pedal to keep the chain straight. It's easy to measure a chain's wear with a ruler when the chain is off the bike -harder when it is ON it.
A worn chain is a loud chain. That's the sound of it eating the cogs and rings sometimes (unless you have another/different chain alignment issue). I don't trust bicycle mechanics. Not all of them know what they are doing. I'm a control freak I guess. I like the knowledge that everything was checked/adjusted by me personally so I know it is right.