Originally Posted by
Sculptor7
This is the second chain and cassette I have replaced. Thought I would have the bike shop do the work although I have the tools to do it.
Their price was very good. I keep the chain pretty clean and lubricated and I consider myself lucky to have gone so long since I was told when I bought the bike from them that I would need to replace the cassette after just a few thousand miles which surprised me. But then before I retired and used my bike only for a short commute I never dealt with the mileage I now put on it. Have replaced chains and freewheels on older vintage bikes so have no concerns about my ability to do so. In the future I probably will replace it sooner. I like the feeling of new equipment functioning smoothly but up until the past few weeks when I started to get a little chain skip on the smaller gears I have had no problem. Riding along the coast there are a minimum of hills and I use the 3 smallest cogs the most.
Just be careful. Older chains and cogs and five to seven-speed were/are different designs to the narrow modern 9 and 10sp ones. If you use Shimano chains, you have to use the proprietary rivet and that can be problematic to get it inserted just right before breaking off the snib. In my experience, the so-called missing links offered by KMC, Sram and others are much better solutions, but you do need to get the right one for the width of chain you are using.
In addition, with a lot of modern chains, you cannot break them then just rejoin them with the rivet tool if you find you've made them too short. It has to do with the way the rivets have been peened. They can be quite difficult to get moving, too, because of the peening.
Freewheels are different animals to freehubs, but the same tool may fit to undo them. You will, however, need a chainwhip to stop the cassette from moving as you try to undo the lock ring.
But the way you are going, it sounds like a wise investment with the bike shop doing the work. However, chain skip can often mean problems up front with the chainring teeth being too worn, as I mentioned before.