chain replacement
 

Hello all,

I just want to know how often you should replace a chain. I've done about 3 000 km with this one, and someone told me that you should replace the chain every 2 000 km. Is this true ? I'm just wondering why it would be necessary. Thank you everybody.

you can get something that checks the wear on your chain, I can "stretch" a chain in a few months, but I am really hard on my chain. Park has a tool to do it, and it's not that expensive.

Those sorts of "rules of thumb" don't work very well in the real world. I've got about a dozen bikes around at any given time, and don't have a clue how many miles are on a chain. I use the Park Tool's "Chain Checker" (about five dollars or so).

I bought a 1985 Trek last year that appeared to have its original factory chain. According to the "Chain Checker", the chain was "like new". The bike was very clean looking, but the "chain checker" was telling me it may not have had many miles on it.

I am still using that chain, so I may have to throw it a "twenty year" birthday party soon.

I replaced one yesterday with close to 5000 miles on it (Dura-ace) - mostly hard miles. I do, however, clean and lube my chain after every ride. At 5000, it was close to being out of limits, but not quite there yet. As was pointed out, there are no rules of thumb. It depends on how well you care for your chain among other things. Simply measure it, and forgot about forumlas and guess work.

My first chain on my present bike (Felt F-35) lasted 2000 miles. My present one has gone about 6300 so far and every time I have it checked, it is fine.

You don't need a special device, as a simple ruler will do. Sheldon Brown, as usual, has a simple, clear explanation: http://www.sheldonbrown.com/chains.html. If you scroll down near the bottom, you'll find a section entitled "Measuring Chain Wear."

Once, at a LBS's maintenance clinic, the shop's co-managers insisted that you should, as a matter of routine, replace the chain and cassette! every 500 miles! I don't go there any more. My present chain has somewhere around 5000 miles without any tell-tale chain-skip, and the chain also passes the measure test.

Chain wear depends on how it is lubed and how it is used/abused. Chains can last beteween 500 and 50,000* miles.
Measue the amount of wear (sometimes known as "stretch") as indicated above.
Replace the chain well before it becomes excessively worn. A worn chain will wear a shark's tooth profile into your rear cogs, which will slip on a new chain. You will then have to replace all the rear cogs.

*50,000 is for a chain fully sealed inside an chaincase with an oil-bath for lube. Most exposed chains expire before 5000 miles.

How long does a rear cassette last? I was about to change my chain again per the recommendation of the bike shop, but it only has about 1500 miles on it (first one lasted 3,500 miles). The cassette has about 6,000. I may just ride this combination into the ground, since I have a brand new cassette sitting on a wheel I never use...

My last SRAM chain lasted all of 1,200mi, so mileage varies. Cool thing about the chain checker vs. the ruler measurement is the chain checker is also accounting for wear on the rollers, and not just stretch.

Are you saying that the Park Chain Checker is more accurate than using a ruler? I ask, only because my chain had over 4000 miles on it, and according to the chain checker, it was over .75, but not quite to 1.0, indicative (at least to me I thought) that the chain was nearing replacement time. I took it to the LBS (good friends - they wouldn't sell me anything that I didn't need), and the head wrench took out his ruler, measured the chain, and announced that I had lots of wear left on it. It made me wonder why I bought the Park tool at the time.

I'd not regret getting that Park tool, more tools = good! I'm sure to end up with one sooner or later. And the guy at the shop probably knows you can go a bit beyond the "official" time to change it just fine, hence "lots" of wear left on it.

Thank you,

I hardly ever lube the chain, maybe once a month, so how long do you think it would last ?

What time is it? :D

Better to replace when Park Chain Checker hits .75, don't wait for 1.0 or you may be buying a new cassette. I just replaced my chain for the first time on my Roubaix Pro. I was very surprised that the Dura Ace 10spd chain only gave me 1600 miles. On the old 9spd chains I could get close to 5,000 miles. Anyone know of any DA 10spd compatible chains that will last longer. The guys at the LBS said the Dura Ace ones should last approx 1500 miles, so at least I got that out of it. I take good care of my drive chain and don't cross gears or do any other things that would cause pre-mature chain wear.

Nobody knows. Less than if you were to regularly clean and lube it.

Sounds pretty abnormal to me. I just replaced my DA 10 speed chain (I run full DA gruppo) with about 5000 (hard, fast) miles. It was just past the .75 on the Park tool, and my LBS said it had more life in it. I wanted to spare my cassette however. I clean and lube mine after every ride - how do you take care of yours?

Clean and lube once a week 100-200 miles (150 is average). I wonder if the rainy season had anything to do with it? I did ride on few wet days, maybe it's possible all the extra grit that accumulates on the drive train when it's wet out helped wear the chain. I used Dumonde Tech lub for the life of the first chain. Since installing the second chain, I've gone back to White Lightning. On my old bike I always used White Lightning and my chains lasted up to 5000 miles. The wrench at Supergo did tell me that 1500 is average on the DA 10spd. I probably could have gone a little further on the old chain, but I was putting on a new and expensive 12/27 cassette for the weekend and didn't want to take my chances on trashing the cassette.