Cheez

I thought I should share this so I made a video of taking care of your chain on how to wear out the chain evenly. Please feel free to comment.

alcjphil

Faulty logic. The number of links in your chain is not an exact multiple of the number of teeth on your chainring. As you pedal the chain does not engage the chainring at the same point as the last time it engaged the chainring. Chain wear happens uniformly over time

BlazingPedals

Sorry, it was too painful to watch the whole thing. Does he think that only the top half of the chain gets worn out?

02Giant 

I wear mine out evenly by riding.

Cheez

I think the chain has the trajectory path on what links are put to greater stress as you push down the pedal versus relieving the pressure on the pedal, meaning they are at "fixed" rate. The links don't rotate around for even wear unless you pull the chain off the ring and reposition the chain on the ring by several inches... If the pedaling was done by a machine to put steady pressure for the entire length of the chain it would result in even wear, or stretch, no?

alcjphil

Yes, there is more stress on the chain during the downward power stroke, but those links are not in the same position the next time they come around and other links are in the higher stress position. In effect, the chain is repositioned automatically as you pedal the bike. There is absolutely no need to manually reposition the chain. Try this: take some red nail polish and put a dot on one chain link and another dot just below on the chainring. Pedal until the red dot on the chain comes around again. You will see that the 2 dots don't line up when they come back around
However, the wear at the chainring is nothing compared to the wear that occurs where the chain goes over the cassette. The power transmitted by the crank is distributed over far fewer teeth on the cog and the chain has to bend much more to engage the teeth. Then the chain has to bend twice more to pass through the derailleur pulleys. This is where the majority of chain wear happens.
Chains don't stretch, they wear

trailflow1

If you stopped buying overpriced Campagnolo Chorus chains and buy KMC instead you can worry less about chain stretch. You can buy 2 KMC chains for the price of 1 Chorus chain.

Chains have a definitive lifespan no matter how much they cost. It's a high stress part. There is no way to really avoid the wear and stretch. Why worry about it prolonging the chain's life by 10% ? 5% ? 2% ? It would be near impossible to measure the effectiveness.

Koyote

OP: You are completely wrong - but if you wish to waste your time, go right ahead.

Kenderbender

Interesting info

_ForceD_

Wear is wear. Stretch is stretch. Regardless of where on the chain it happens...it happens. Bottom line is that it’s going to wear/stretch somewhere and it will have the same affect. Besides...the repositioning happens frequently as a consequence of going through the gears.

Dan

dedhed

Please don't make videos about things you know nothing about.

woodcraft

Oh, now, knowing things and being right is over rated.

Questioning is good. Fits right in with some of my ideas about reversing and/or flipping chain to even out the wear,

and measuring chain wear by weight...

Cheez

At first I was not going to bother making this video cause I wasn't sure what I claimed about the chain is right.

Thomas15

You are not even semi-funny.

Wilfred Laurier

Chains don't wear unevenly. Measure the stretch (distance between 12 links using a ruler) at several spots along the chain and it will be the same.

shelbyfv

livedarklions

I gave up most of the way through. This makes absolutely no sense at all. As far as tension goes, each link goes through exactly the same cycle as all of the others on each revolution. Even if it were a matter of tension stretching things (it's not), no link is going through a different cycle than any other, and repositioning will accomplish exactly nothing.

The only way I can imagine uneven wear being a real thing is if there were a bad tooth on the chain ring or gear, and only if the ring were perfectly synchronized so that the bad tooth kept hitting the same links. That's a really far-fetched scenario, especially on a multi-gear bike.

Wilfred Laurier

Actually, he is correct about there being higher tension and therefore different rates of wear at different points in the pedal stroke. What he has wrong is that the same segment of chain isn't on the same spot on the chainring every pedal revolution and so there is no need to manually move the chain.

Also, the whole chain is not in tension at the same time. It's only under significant tension on the top run, and is only experiencing wear where it comes off the cassette cog and where it goes onto the chainring. The chain experiences no wear while running in a straight line, and is under no tension (meaning no wear) on the bottom run and through the derailleur.

indyfabz

I think I have a new signature--with your permission, of course. I have grown tired of my current one.

Cheez

Thanks for the comment for sharing your thoughts. I appreciate it.

mr_bill

It can happen on any single chain ring drivetrain, but only if the length of the chain is an unfortunate ratio of the chain ring size. So, maybe if you have a long tail with a 1x11 drivetrain, or if you are building a giraffe unicycle.

-mr. bill

dedhed

https://www.diamondchain.com/understanding-wear-life/

livedarklions

Last time I checked, I have two feet each at the opposite from the other in the pedal stroke, so even if it did line up perfectly, the differences are likely to be fairly negligible. The whole chain is going to be worn long before this "unevenness" would matter.

livedarklions

I think I'm more likely to damage my fork hitting a unicorn than I am to actually get that exact ratio.

The bad tooth is going to ruin the chain even or uneven, anyway.

Thomas15

Use at will, no problem indyfabz