Originally Posted by
Sixty Fiver
chucky - I really want some of those special lube free frictionless chains that last for tens of thousands of miles that you use.
Unfortunately the difference is probably more due to user error than any particular chain. If I had to guess I'd say:
1. The lubrication you're so fond of is behaving as more of a dirt magnet than a lubricant, thus shortening your chain life.
2. You're replacing your chains before their useful life has been spent. When the chain becomes so worn that it starts to skip teeth there's no need to replace it (though somehow I doubt you even let it go that far). Simply install a good chain tug and it will wear itself back into correct engagement.
Hope that helps and please accept my apologies if your experience excepts you from learning better ways of doing things.
Originally Posted by
Sixty Fiver
A clean and properly serviced derailleur system is more efficient than an IGH but only marginally so
Not according to scientific inquiry.
Originally Posted by
Sixty Fiver
Each system has it's advantages and disadvantages and just because you can't deal with a derailleur equipped bike in traffic does not mean that other people can't, and most do pretty well.
Surely, but just because it's possible to get by with an inferior system it doesn't mean that system is equivalent to superior alternatives.
Originally Posted by
Sixty Fiver
That whoosh you hear might be someone on a derailleur equipped bike who knows how to shift and while you are dealing with a larger jump in gears and spinning back up the person on the derailleur equipped bike will pull away as they smoothly transition from one gear to the next in efficient little steps.
Or maybe by that point I'll be standing on the pedals (already instantaneously shifted into the correct high gear) and half way to the next stop. Smoothly transitioning between little steps may be an advantage on the open road, but in traffic it's far more important to be able to quickly transition directly between highest and lowest gears (often in the midst of unforeseen stops which cannot be anticipated).