I used to get serious chain wear in my sport of Karting many years ago and we used to take a brand new chain and clean it in an electronis bath that really cleaned the chain completely. Then it was boiled in a special wax grease to get the grease right the way through the chain. This was common practice and chains used to last me about 4 hours into a 6 hour race. Then we went Duplex chain. --This is a double chain and required special duplex engine sprockets to be made and ran two rear sprockets.
Then there was the grease for the race- A mixture of Water pump grease, Hypoy gearbox oil and copperslip. That was messy and the chain would just about last an hour without running dry.
On the bike I still clean the chain after every ride- oil it liberraly and the chain retains the oil for about 1 hour. After that- unless you carry a bottle of oil with you- you run on a dry chain and that ruins chains quicker than a dirty one.
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How long was I in the army? Five foot seven.
Spike Milligan