Originally Posted by
chucky
Nope, they last forever. With good tensioning you don't have to get rid of a chain until it snaps in half regardless of how stretched it becomes. The chain tugs typically break before the chains do:
...
I'd rather not get into that argument again. Let is suffice to say that it's the conventional wisdom on the matter which is "the opposite of correct". If you've experimented with it and found differently then I'd like to hear it, but until then I'm going by what I've observed in the real world.
It seems like what you are saying is that you are okay with the chain stretching. But for most of us a stretched out chain
is a worn out chain because it will either wear the cog/freewheel and chainring out or not fit them any more. A chain being worn out to the breaking point almost never occurs with with fixed-gear non-recumbents, both because the chain is relatively short and we tend to use 1/8 inch chains.
At any rate the wood wedge solution seems like a good one as long as you can get enough tension for your needs that way.