Its ridiculous I know. Heres what I normally do to clean/lubricate my chain. Please tell me if I am doing anything wrong:

1. I use the mucoff chain spray and clamp tool to degrease/clean the chain
2. I wash it off with some water and a toothbrush.
3. I wipe it with a dry rag and let it dry for an hour or more
4. I put halfords branded teflon oil on the chain, run it through the gears and then wipe of excess with a dry rag

I also clean the chainrings, sprockets and jockey wheels with a toothbrush aswell

Usually I do this once a week and I ride about 70-100 miles a week. I have decided to use prolink chain lube now though although i will probably still use the same process to clean/lube the chain

Is it worth removing the chain and soaking it in a degreaser? It would seem like a bit much every week to me though.

I'm not of the keep your chain super clean school Reasonable cleanliness is important, and riding with grit in your chain will kill it off, and riding with grit on your chain will wear sprockets. It's hard to say why you got such bad service, possibly rust while idle for a long time.

Reviewing your routine, I suspect that step 2 may be the problem. After using solvent to remove or break down any oils, you're adding water a chain which is totally unprotected. The water will wick into the chain, the same way it wicks under a glass table top. Once inside, drying the outside won't remove it, nor will it dry in an hour on it's own. (time how long water wicked under glass takes to dry).

You then add oil which can't wick in because the spaces are already full of water, so it sits on top where you later wipe it off. Upshot of the whole routine is you're using water as a chain lube, with a film of oil on the outside to attract dirt.


If you wish to clean your chain weekly, use the solvent spray and the tooth brush together, then skip the water entirely. When the solvent has evaporated dry add your lube and allow it to soak in.

Or you can do a thorough job cleaning and drying the chain, and use a thick lube which will stay inside, and dry wipe the outside clean as needed. This is faster and easier and does a great job on road bikes, though mtn bike chains can get gritty and need a real wash depending on where you're riding.

To put in my 2 cents:

1) Cassette or cog wear is largely unrelated to cleaning issues or even lubrication.

2) I have myself worn out cogs on comparable mileages - riding in the flats, virtually no hills. That was some low end shimano stuff (Alivio?) on my city bike. Cogs and chain of the chorus or record quality from Campagnolo easily last 6-8000 miles on my road bike. (Maybe longer than that, but I like my drivetrain to be quiet, so I swap early.)

So it might just be a question of quality...

If the Mucoff cleaner is a water based detergent style degreaser then you should be using water to rinse it well. A lot of those cleaners are somewhat corrosive if any trace is left behind for a long time so a thorough rinse is required. If it's a petrochemical solvent then you don't need to rinse it with water at all.

There's absolutely no reason for your drive train to become worn in only 600 miles. So it MUST be this frequent cleaning and rinsing with water. If you insist on using a detergent type degreaser instead of a solvent for cleaning then I'd add in a step. After the water rinsing and blotting dry as well as you can spray down and blot away the chain with WD40 before adding the oil to lube the chain. This is one place where WD40 totally shines. It was made to be a water displacing protectorant. So it'll get into the links and pins and push the water out. From there you can blot the chain dry with multiple paper towels or rags to remove as much of the water and WD as you can. Then apply the oil.

Frankly I've done it both ways. The rinsing and WD steps added time and cost and I quickly decided that I prefer using mineral spirits sold as "low odor paint thinner" or Varsol industrial cleaning solvent. WIth these petrochemical based solvents there's no need to rinse with water. And the solvent is totally compatible with the oil you use for lubing the chain. So I can skip a few steps and don't need to worry about rust and wear from any trapped water. It's a little messier and you'll want to use nitrile solvent resistant gloves for the work. However the dirty solvent from the clamp on cleaning gizmo can be poured into a jar and allowed to settle out and the top clean solvent used again and again. So it's not as enviromentally or cost wise as bad as some other options that are a one time use only. And best of all there's no water involved so there's no need to leave it to dry on unprotected metal which can rust a little in the few hours you leave it to dry.

As for oil to use that's a hot topic but it's fair to say that any oil that isn't too extreme a choice will do the job nicely. The key to your rapid wear would appear to be the steps you use for the cleaning.

Finally, unless you're commuting in sloppy wet weather there's just no need to clean your chain weekly. For the amount of mileage you're putting on MAYBE once a month it should be done. But if you are riding in wet mucky weather regularly then once a week becomes about right.

Thanks for the help guys. I just took the advice from evans cycles to clean it once a week. I tihnk ill start cleaning/lubricating every 2-300 miles? especially since it is summer now

Is it possible that the early wear on the cassette is from cross-chaining it, or does that just put more stress on the derailer?

Neither.

Cross chaining speeds chain wear by concentrating wear at one end of the pin creating an effect similar to how you angle a saw to bite on one corner, then reversing to bite on the other.

Also cross chaining causes increased side wear between the plates, eventually increasing the clearance and making the chain more flexible (to the side). This isn't a problem, except that as the chain gets more flexible the shift response worsens, especially on smaller sprockets which are farther from the jockey wheel.

It also increases side wear on sprocket teeth, as the chain comes off the top of the cassette, and engages the chainring.

Cross chaining does not in any affect the RD since that tuns on the lower loop which never has any significant tension. It also doesn't cause the type of wear that causes skipping, that's a result of the chain engaging or disengaging under load and wearing the edges of the teeth as the rollers roll up or down the teeth.

Hm, I just checked on my road bike (campy chorus 8 speed), and if there is any difference in distance between sprocket and jockey wheel, it becomes smaller with smaller sprockets.

Wouldn't cross chaining introduce a sideload on the lower jockey? Of course this would be much smaller than the sideloads on the upper jocked during shifts, but the lower jockey would run with it's (low) sideload for as long as it's out of the perfect chainline, no?

As you seem knowledgeable about chains: I have often wondered if any lubricant could prevent metal-to-metal contact between pin and sleeve in the chain under load. It seems to me that the load bearing surface is just too small and the form of the gap between pin and sleeve would promote lubricant displacement under load.

Do you have hard facts on that? Specifically, at which chain load metal-to-metal contact occurs (if it does at all) even with a perfectly lubed, grit-free chain?

Bikes do vary, and I should have added "usually" in the statement. But the point remains that as side flexibility increases the ability of the jockey wheel to push the chain over as you shift.


Yes, though load may be too strong a term because there's close to zero tension in the lower loop. Also cross chaining is a matter of degree. On a 2x9 road bike, the larger chainring lines up between the 3rd and 4th sprockets, so high gear riding also represents a decent amount of deflection.

Rather than look at cross chaining as a black and white issue, I prefer to think of in shades of gray, there are aligned sprocket pairs, then others that are mis-aligned by varying amounts. I'm not at all sure that riding fully cross-chained for a short while is any worse than riding in high for a longer while.


The express purpose of any lubricant is to prevent metal to metal contact. When that happens the lubricant has failed. You can hear it in a bike chain as sort of a chirping sound - the same as a squeaky hinge but at a different pitch.

The ability of a lube to prevent metal/metal contact depends on it's film strength, and the pressure pressing the two parts together. Thinking in bike chain terms, a lube that's perfectly OK spinning along at a moderate pace in the flats, may be inadequate for the higher chain tension when pounding up steep hills. The lubes ability to replenish itself in the working area is also a key factor, as it's constantly being forced away from the point of contact.


There is a ton of literature on the subject. Search using key words like "lubrication science" or "bearing lubrication" or "plain bearing lubrication" You'll have enough reading to keep you busy for a couple of years.

Absolutely.

Could you clarify what you mean by the lower loop? Anything lower than the sprocket (as the 'returning' part of the chain that does not carry any pedaling load), or do you differentiate between the 'loops' the chain makes around the 2 RD jockey wheels?

Yes, absolutely.

I do have a basic understanding of tribology, although it is slightly rusted. (Pun intended). However, I fail to find specifics on bicycle chains, which differ considerably from motorcycle chains. So if it's not too much trouble, I'd like to repeat my question: Would a good bicycle chain, new, grit free have any metal-to-metal contact in its bearings under load? (thinking hill climbing out of the saddle).

If not, where does the black stuff come from, that on a new chain develops within less than a 100 miles, and which very clearly comes from the inside? I had always taken that to be metal abrasion remnants...

Thanks for your patience.

I use the term lower loop to mean the entire length of chain between the chainring and cassette on the lower or returning side. Returning loop is probably more precise, but upper and lower is easier for most people.


Bike chains are a bit unique because they operate at very high loads compared to their size. The nearest comparable application in terms of loading (relative) may be fork lift chains, but they don't move nearly as much.

If we succeeded in reaching the ideal of zero metal-to-metal contact on mechanical devices there'd be zero wear but life isn't ideal, and narrow bike chains are far from ideal, hence the fairly high rates of wear. Even if you ran chains in clean room conditions they'd still turn black with wear by product made up of metal dust.

While the goal of chain lube is zero wear, the best we can hope for is a good fight in what will always be a losing battle.

Much of the black IS metal abrasion particles. Where it comes from is a topic open for a lot of pondering. It's possible that some of it comes from points of extreme pressure pushing the oil film aside and resulting in metal to metal contact. At least until those points wear a matching and close fitting radius in the parts that the oil film can protect. But our drive chains are also exposed to dust and other grit which will migrate into the inner contact points due to the motion of the chain as it passes around the sprockets and jockey pulleys. So much or most of the black we get is due to the abrasive nature that the chain lube soon picks up due to the dust and grit forming a grinding paste with the oil.

To limit the damage done by this abrasive situation the best cleaning methods will work to flush deep into the chain and carry away the old oil and grit along with the black metallic particles that were torn away from the metal.

Geez, when I describe it this way it's a wonder the darn things last a month in wet weather, let alone a year or more and many thousands of miles.

One other possibility is an out of specification chain. Unles you accurately measure the chain before use, you cannot be sure it was wear. It may have been "too long" when manufacured. The variation you described earlier in your measurements suggests there may have been a problem.

Thank you. Would it be right to consider the bearings in a chain to be a sleeve bearing constantly operated under 'start-up' conditions? With the lack of proper rotation and the subsequent failure to build up or maintain dynamic pressure in the lubricationg fluid, with a correspondingly thinning lubrication film?

If so, would not the wear be (at least) proportional to the load on the chain? That was my reasoning, that maybe it might be better to allow for bit more of cross chaining if that allows one to use the big chainring, thereby reducing the load on the chain by maybe 30%, depending on the chainring ratios.

Or am I thinking to simplistic here?

Ah yes! That matches my observation that the production of the 'black stuff' is most pronounced on a new chain. I also find that it runs more quietly after a few 100 miles, even when changing the sprockets along with the chain, so that cannot be a problem of mismatch.

I've never done this myself but I would expect that there's some "break in" wear such that there is an initial small but fairly rapid amount of wear that leads to some "stretch" followed by a long period of gradual wear until the chain is considered worn beyond further use. If this is the case then some increase in the production of the black stuff on a new chain would be expected.

I've never noticed this tendency since the conditions I ride in are far from labratory clean and never really thought much about it.

The wear in the chain takes place at two significant interfaces. First is the pin to bushing wear between the pins and the swaged bushings of the narrow links that fit inside the wider outer links. Second is the wear that occurs between the rollers and the swaged outer surface of those same inner link plates. But the only part we measure is the inner joint wear when we measure the chain. Yet the wear to the rollers also plays a part in how the chain will fit the sprocket teeth.

When hanging between the sprockets in the free area the chain connections are not under any significant amount of movement since the chain is purely in tension. So metal to metal contact should not cause any wear. Although I guess it could cause some degree of pressure displacement in a new chain with smaller contact points if the pressure at some small contact should rise above the plastic flow point. The rotational wear in the chain only really takes place at two points. Where the chain passes off the rear sprocket and where it rolls onto the front chainring. And in reducing values for some number of sprocket teeth around the circumference of the chain since it's not just one tooth of the sprocket that is engaging the rollers. But it's fair to say that by the time you look at the links and rollers about 1/4 to 1/3 of the way around the half circle of chain engagement that the links won't actually be transferring any load to the teeth. The load being taken up by the new teeth coming out of and into engagement at the top of the sprockets. And since the lower chain run isn't under any tension other than the spring in the derailleur any wear at those points of rotation would be minimal and caused only by the abrasive value of the oil and road grit that exists at the time.

Yep, all in all it's a wonder we can pedal our butts down the road with such an exposed and mistreated drive train concept....

some seriously seriously good information here. thanks guys. i ended up replacing my cassette and my bike is fine again! hopefully the next 600 miles will be better!