How tight are you people out there running your chains? I like the lack of give when doing track stands shifting my weight back and forth, but too tight gives that horrible grinding sound, what do you think?

I run my chain like a track racer - nice and loose.

I usually run it pretty snug with about .5inch slack up/down movement with my finger. I don't like it being too loose because I can feel where the chain goes slack from a forward motion to backwards. You get that pedal...nothin...bam..chains' tight again feeling.

Too tight causes bearing wear.

tight like man's anoos.

I always run my chain tight enough, but never run it too tight.

I really like to find the spot between my rear cog and my front ring that is the tightest and then lock my axle down. Rotate it a couple of times and since my stupid rings aren't truly round (are anyones???) the chain is tight at one spot and loose at one spot and inbetween throughout.

Works good E 2 shoes.

i run it like lemmy does... FAST AND LOOSE!

loosey goosey. loose enough that i can feel just a bit of play when shifting my weight back and forth in a trackstand.

edit: that thumb ring is pretty sick.

i have about an inch of play (total) at the tightest point. pretty loose but definitely not loose enough to come off the ring.

A little bit of derailment but I am just a little relieved to hear it's not only me. A conversion I did has been doing the tight-loose-tight-loose thing when spinning the cranks. I even did some artful grinding on the inside of the chainring to give it a little more wiggle room. I finally came to the conclusion that, **** it I'll ride it whatever!

Yeah... I would doubt very much if anyone had perfectly round rings. I was stating that more or less to see if anyone had something that was stated to be manufactured "perfectly round".

This is why when you're tensioning your chain, you should tension it with the cranks in AT LEAST 4 positions. If I were actually track racing, I would probably try to set it up by doing the math so that the cog's non roundedness and the rings non roundedness would line up in most cases. But that would require a graphing calculator and some paper... oh yeah, and time.

Good thing Im not track racing.

Snug, but not overly tight.

toight like tiger

pretty damn tight. Not maximumly tight.

fajzah fajzah fajzah fajzah

I guess it doesn't work too well with new stuff and tight tolerances, but i've had reasonable success centering chainrings on used roaddoubles using the sheldon method.

half inch of play is what's recommended.

It wouldn't be too difficult to make the ring perfectly round. More likely, it's the hole in the center that causes the problems. I've put a chainring spacer in backwards on my BMX bike, and had it shift ever so slightly mid-race. Broke the chain, but managed to not contact the top tube.

Half an inch or so of play up and down when it's at the tightest spot works for me. I find I can tell when the chain's getting too loose because I can hear it when I resist to stop.

I can never get it tight enough. What is a good technique for pulling it back to a tight spot?

I like mine to be moderately tight, I hate track standing and having my cranks shake around the teeth.

question: if you ride with slack, doesn't the violent, abrupt change in direction of the chainring when skidding at higher speeds cause faster wear/stretching of the chain? i feel like a loose chain could accelerate damage to the chain by causing it to (violently) snap taught everytime you skip or skid.

seems to me that regardless of what ss or "track racers" do, riding fixed on the street essentially requires a no-play (or very minimal play) chain...

I've never really experimented with this. I always keep about 1/2 inch or 1 inch slack in the chain, something like that. Maybe it would be better to run the chain tight. Not excessively tight, but just no slack tight. Don't know. What harm would that do?

Oh, duh, I don't even have a fixed (any more), I have a ss.

does a "loose" chain make skidding easier?

I run just enough slack so that the chain will not bind at any point and tight enough that I don't drop my chain... a looser chain does run out faster but is not as practical for urban riding as besides braking, big hits can cause the chain to jump off.

A lot of it comes down to personal preference.