Commuting in bad weather - mud and sand are present. Not too much, but present. I get under 2000 kilometers from an 8-speed chain. Sometimes even less. I wipe it clean and lubricate regularly. No real washing though. Is that normal? How much do you get from your chains?

On fine weather bike, 10 speed chain lasts double that, with the same treatment (but no rain).

I usually get ~3500 miles (5600km) from my 8sp chain (KMC brand)
I usually don't see mud or sand, but it gets rained on and picks up lots of road grime.
I wipe down and lube, no washing or degreaser, every week (150mi)

I can get 8000 miles on my single speed chain. Propably more.

On my 8 speed chain in bad weather/winter, I get 1800 miles until the chain is worn until it "should be replaced."

However, I found that from a $ standpoint, replacing it at that point makes no sense. If I replace the chain as soon as the chain gauge says to, I find that I still have a worn out cassette at about 9000 miles and have to replace that as well.

If I just leave the worn chain on, it still works just fine, and I can go to 9000 miles and even farther, then replace the chain and cassette at once then.

That way every 9000+ miles I go through one chain and one cassette rather than 4 chains and one cassette. Performance is the same either way.

I only this year got a nice weather bike, I don't really know but it has 2400 miles on it and the chain is not even to the 75% worn mark yet. Good thing too since chains and cassettes cost 3x as much for this bike, for no good reason that I know - other than "that's what people will pay for them." I'm unconvinced that slightly narrower chains cost a lot more to build.

No idea how many miles, but I remove and clean the chain weekly in a mineral spirits bath, which removes most of the grit and all of the oil. Replace when worn out per the Park Tools gauge.

No it's not.

Which chain are you using? I had very disappointing life from a SRAM PC-830 (~1500mi), but the 850 and 870s I have on other bikes are lasting far longer with the same conditions and service.

SRAM PC 870, and KMC Z72. Both were under 2500 kilometers. Z72 lasting only about 3-4 months, while SRAM lasted 5-6 months. I do between 300-500 kilometers per month.

Next up will be KMC X8.

Cassettes are changed regularly, but even when new, chains don't last long.

Chainrings are steel and look OK (no shark teeth), but I'm considering changing them just in case... though they look OK after some 3 and a half years and some 15,000 kilometers.

I can chip in on this one.......
I have seen and had bikes w/ 7500-10K on the same matching chain and cassette (6, 7, 8 speed). Drive and shifting acceptable. Perhaps a little mushier. Change them out and drive and shifting feels 'crisper' ? Key is, the cassette and chain must wear in together, a marriage. I have seen working chains and cassettes on pedicabs that were astonishing as to the amount of wear.

I do like to change my first chain on each new cassette, around 1.5K-2K, at least, but mileage may vary.
One more new chain on the slightly worn cassette.
First chain wrapped around the cassette will make it around 1.5K-2K miles before noticeably worn.
Change that one to restore to like new drive, then keep running the setup until end of life, i.e., one of the rear cogs starts skipping/slipping.
Tried this approach the last couple of times around.


My 8spd chains seem to be longer wearing.
I run 8 spd on my urban assault/utility rig that pulls two trailers, Adams TrailABike, WeeHoo iGo, front and rear racks, panniers, groceries, loads, etc......
SRAM 850 seems to be a decent price/value point.


One other thing.
Don't put a new chain on a significantly worn cassette.
It will just make the new chain stretch, within a couple of hundred miles.
And will not change the skipping, if it was already a problem.

How do you determine the degree of chain wear/stretch? At what point do you determine that it is sufficiently worn/stretched to require replacement?

Seems so to me. Shifting was working perfectly all the way until the chain started skipping. When I installed a brand new chain and cassette, I did not notice any improvement. So if performance was degraded, clearly it would take someone more sophisticated than I am to detect it.

I also determined that babying a chain doesn't do any good for me on the foul weather bike. The route is so dirty that even with a brand new chain, within a mile of leaving home the chain is covered with grit and sand and clay anyway. I just oil it and wipe it down when it starts to make noise, and blast it with a power washer and relube it when it get so caked in mud that it won't bend anymore.

I once decided to try taking the chain off and cleaning in mineral spirits weekly (or when it was very dirty, whichever came first) and lubing carefully from the beginning with a new chain. The end result of spending what I would guess was easily more than 10 hours of my time doing chain maintenance (versus maybe 20 minutes otherwise) was that my chain lasted about 2000 miles instead of 1800 miles. That works out to about $1.50 worth of chain life, so I was working for about 15 cents an hour.

On my road bike I do clean and lube regularly, because it doesn't get ridden on the gravel roads (much, unless it's dry and clean) or in the rain, so the chain lasts longer.

On my new foul weather bike I expect the chain to last quite a long time because it's got an internally geared hub and a chain case, so the chain doesn't flex to the side.

Use a ruler. If it's stretched more than 1/8" in 12 inches, it needs replacement. (unless you're following my "just let the whole drivetrain wear out together and replace the whole thing when performance gets bad" rule)

I don't follow. How does this save money?

I easily get more than 5,000 miles on my chains, using Shimano Ultegra 9 speed versions. Not sure of the exact mileage because I always seem to forget to write it down when I get a new chain, but it's well more than 5K. I had one bike with a Campy Chorus 10 drive train, and that ate up chains and spit them out. I was lucky to get 2,000 miles from Campy chains and they would often start getting noisy and shifting bad at 1,500 miles. I got tired of that and sold the group, now using Ultegra or Dura-Ace parts on all of my bikes, and I don't worry about chain wear anymore.

+1

I go against "ultimate perfect" advice a lot. Usually because I can't tell a difference or, usually, not anywhere near enough of a difference to make up for even a bit of the extra trouble I go through to get it.

Like tire pressures, I experience less of a decrease in pedaling effort than decrease in comfort. Effort minimal, comfort huge. I run mine at the lower range of the charts.

Same with chains, wipe and lube when they complain, not just when I think they need it and replace it once a year or if it shows stretch with the ruler. I use $15-25 chains and don't see spending a hundred bucks of time worth making them last ten cents more.

My philosophy. However, well under 2000 kilometers, my chain got to .75 mark on the chain wear gauge. In 4 months time, mostly just flat terrain commuting. That's really short I think. LBS says to wait until the 1.0 mark, ruler agrees with them, but it wears quickly from .75 to 1.0, guess some 500 k more (a month, month and a half max). Way too quick.

Anecdote received.

I get where I need to Go, Out of It.

then after a while , I repay its service rendered, by it, to replace the worn with the fresh parts .

with an IGH the worn parts to replace are Few.

I replace the chain on my all weather IGH bike once a year or so, which is about every 5,000 miles. Takes about 20 minutes and costs $7. I never clean. measure or wipe down the chain, just spray silicone spray once every other month or so. Replaced the rear sprocket once at about 25,000 miles, am now over 50,000 miles and the chain-sprocket combo still works like clockwork.

gregjones, I recently discovered the same as you about tires: pressure makes little discernible difference in effort but a noticeable difference in comfort. I've also gone to much lower pressures. I think my rear was down to 50 this morning. I pumped both up to 70. These are 32mm tires on a 40-lb bike. I weigh 170 lbs.

However, I am unusually sensitive to chain friction, which I think is lucky. It keeps me oiling and wiping my chain.

(Actually I have let the chain go a few hundred miles longer a few times which is why 9000 miles comes into it - I'm changing to 2000 and 8000 just for clarity)

Option one - Install new chain every 2000 miles, install new cassette along with chain change every 8000 miles.

Option two - Install new chain and cassette every 8000 miles.

Clear now?

Yes, it's clear now. I don't track my miles, so I don't know how long anything lasts. I have too many bikes and don't ride enough, so I probably don't have 8,000 miles on anything.

Still, I'd prefer to forestall cassette replacement, especially with expensive cassettes such as 9-speeds. If that means "wasting" chains, I'm OK with that. Replacing them prematurely is one of the few environmentally-unfriendly things I do. It saves a lot of solvent handling and dirty scrubbing.

To each their own, but with my experience, when my chain started complaining, the damage was already done. Rust and internal wear had already taken place. The chain never lasted another 1k miles before stretching beyond 1.0

The 830 chain does not have a hardened pin when the 850 and above do which is probably why you have had much better luck with them.

My road bike with original 105 cassette and chain have over 2,300 miles on them, and it has seen plenty of wet weather commuting. The chain is stretched pretty bad at well over 1/8" in 12 links, and the cassette is showing signs of wear. The chain skips on the cassette every now and then. I'm replacing both next week with a new Ultegra 11-28 cassette and KMC 10-speed chain. I will try to do better with keeping everything cleaned and lubed than I did before. I did lube the original chain every couple hundred miles or so but haven't been cleaning it like I should. Now that I have the tools to remove the crankset it should be easier.

I think you still missed something. Changing chains made NO DIFFERENCE. My cassette still had to be replaced in the same number of miles.

The cassette was surely more worn out at that point, but it didn't matter because the chain was worn out too and they matched. At the end I replaced the cassette at 9000 miles either way.