My wife has started to notice on her daily rides that her chain is slapping up against the chain stay when hitting rough spots in the road. According to her, "it sounds like my bike is falling apart when I hit a rough spot in the road." There's actually a clear plastic guard over the chain stay that keeps the frame from getting scratched....I'm guessing it was placed there for this exact reason. The bike/groupset is fairly new, less than 1000 miles on it thus far.

This isn't a problem I've ever encountered with my bike, or at least not that I've noticed. Does anybody else run into this problem? Is there a solution?

Don't ride over bumps.

Or cable-tie some old inner tube material to the stay.

As long as there's a pad or sticker on the stay to keep the chain from chewing it up, it's ok for the chain to hit it.

that's why there are chainstay protectors.

You might want to be sure she is not cross-chaining in the small/small combo and/or check if her chain could be shorter.

A good tip for riding on rough roads - try to keep it in the big ring. I know that's not possible all the time, but if you can do it, it helps keep the chain under more tension.

cdr

Make sure your chain is not too long. Excess chain length will cause excess chain slap.

i've got something like this on my cross bike, its a tiny bit padded and absorbs all the noise of chain slap.

Second on telling her to quit cross-chaining.

Looks interesting... what's it called? Where can we get it?