Author Topic: The Anti 1x thread  (Read 9911 times)

mattc

  • n.b. have grown beard since photo taken
    • Didcot Audaxes
Re: The Anti 1x thread
« Reply #75 on: 05 December, 2019, 07:29:45 pm »
Quick-links (and their ilk):

I don't know whether this is an issue - it used to be. As I recall, the first 10sp chains didn't have reusable quick-links, but I know they fixed that at some point, cos I've got one for my recently purchased 10sp!

So can you now also get quick-links for 11sp 12sp & 13speed?
Has never ridden RAAM
---------
No.11  Because of the great host of those who dislike the least appearance of "swank " when they travel the roads and lanes. - From Kuklos' 39 Articles

Re: The Anti 1x thread
« Reply #76 on: 05 December, 2019, 08:25:33 pm »
Quick-links (and their ilk):

I don't know whether this is an issue - it used to be. As I recall, the first 10sp chains didn't have reusable quick-links, but I know they fixed that at some point, cos I've got one for my recently purchased 10sp!

So can you now also get quick-links for 11sp 12sp & 13speed?

KMC list re-usable QLs for 10s, 11s but not 12s at present (only single-use ones).  When I looked about a year ago you couldn't get re-usable links in 11s but you could in 10s of course.

cheers

quixoticgeek

  • Mostly Harmless
Re: The Anti 1x thread
« Reply #77 on: 06 December, 2019, 12:32:02 am »
This is more or less exactly what I've fond running 10 speed KMC chains.
I do clean mine and run either Decathlon wet lube (for long rides) or wax based dry lubes on shorter rides.
Cleaning is generally a matter of blasting the chain with WD40, wiping it repeatedly with a rag until it's mostly clean - i.e the rag is coming off much less "oily"
I then store the bike like that and lube the chain at the next outing.

Seems to work OK, with nice quiet running and reliable shifting.

I use Chain-L lube, which likes to sit for a period before you use the bike. So My preference is to apply lube and leave it over night to wick down into the rollers properly. I've never got the supposed 1600km between applications that they claim, but I have managed 800+km. That said, My usual need for reapplication is due to rain. Perhaps it's more I only get ~800km between rain...

Last time I checked (Crowcombe Hill, Quantocks), I was pushing a loaded touring bike at 3 kph where I'd been pedaling at 4.5 to 5 kph (until I tried to shake a drop of sweat off my eyelash before it got in my eye, and lost my balance)

Pushing can be as slow as 2.5kph for me, I tend to have to stop and walk when speed drops to 5kph if their's any gradient. That said, I can happily ride along next to someone walking at ~3kph no problem.

Quote
The biggest 8 speed cassette I can find is an 11-34.
11-40 8 speed here

Ah, useful. Quite big jumps at the big end.


Suspect alot is being lost in my humour, I could not do that even on a motorbike.   

Do you think that there will there will be some people doing it with a fixed gear?

No idea. The hilly audax tends to have a low turnout compared to the rest of the year. Last year we had only 1, me. Oh, and 37 men.

Quote
Do you rotate three chains to keep the the cassette life or one chain then another.

Being nosey as I'm thinking of going 1x9 or 1x10 on the mountain bike.

I keep the chain wear gauge near the bike, and every time I feel like I've done a few thousand kilometers, I start checking it every few hundred. I try to run 3 chains per cassette, and was planning on 3 cassettes per chainset, but I find the chain rings only seem to last about 15000km, Tho I perhaps should start monitoring them sooner, last time I posted a picture on twitter, and people were horrified at how worn they are. I have come to accept that at the distance I am doing, I am going to spend a lot on parts for my bike.

One of the reasons I upgraded to using X11SL, is the pins are hollow. This allows for more options after the life of the chain. I have a pedant (featured on the GCN show!) that I wear all the time, it is made from the X10SL chain that I used to ride to Hell. That trip was a game changer for me, and wearing the pendant made from the chain reminds me of that. It's a lot easier with the hollow pins. I am also experimenting with laser etching links used for significant rides (Hell, RatN, TCR Etc...). I have yet to work out what to do with the dead chain rings or cassettes yet.

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Wonder how that happens, different materials for the chain?

Improvements in materials science.

Perhaps counter-intuitively, I use an expensive chain (SRAM PC991) on my about-town bike because it *doesn't* go rusty when neglected.  It does a fraction of the mileage of my other bikes, so I'm not replacing it very often, and I consider the more expensive chain worthwhile for not having to worry about it.

The nicer bikes tend to get more chain maintenance (either in the interests of reliability/performance, or because they end up absolutely covered in mud), so can have less posh chains.

I was amazed at how rust prone the default tiagra chain was that came with the groupset I bought. I was also disappointed by the KMC X10.93 rusting fast, tho slower than the tiagra chain.

Even a KMC X10SL will rust after a bit of use if you wash all the lube off it, then hang it up in the bathroom... DAMHIKT...

big shock there; despite being fractionally narrower,  expensive chains (using the latest hardening technology)  last longer than cheap chains!  Who'd have thunk it?..... ::-)

Many riders are most interested in the most cost-effective strategy (in time and/or money terms). That varies with the use/maintenance regime of course. No point in spending a lot on a chain if it is just going to go rusty....?

Usefully the article linked does provide a graph of cost per 10000km for each chain. Looks like my prefered chain is about $250 per 10000km. Tho I think that may be based on RRP. I pay €44 per chain, and get ~3000km out of it.

There is also an environmental question. Is it better to use fewer more expensive chains, or a larger number of cheaper ones. What is the relative environmental impact of making a chain? Does the extra coating have a bigger footprint?

KMC list re-usable QLs for 10s, 11s but not 12s at present (only single-use ones).  When I looked about a year ago you couldn't get re-usable links in 11s but you could in 10s of course.

Yep. I notice tho that quick links rust faster than any other links on the modern chains. Based on the sticking them on the edge of the sink and forgetting about them till they have turned totally orange...

J
--
Beer, bikes, and backpacking
http://b.42q.eu/

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: The Anti 1x thread
« Reply #78 on: 06 December, 2019, 12:49:02 am »
Yep. I notice tho that quick links rust faster than any other links on the modern chains. Based on the sticking them on the edge of the sink and forgetting about them till they have turned totally orange...

Stick them to the fridge magnets.  Less exposure to wet, corrosive stuff.  I've got a set of 7S ones that date from the last time I had a 7S chain...

quixoticgeek

  • Mostly Harmless
Re: The Anti 1x thread
« Reply #79 on: 06 December, 2019, 12:50:03 am »
Yep. I notice tho that quick links rust faster than any other links on the modern chains. Based on the sticking them on the edge of the sink and forgetting about them till they have turned totally orange...

Fridge magnets.

Chocolate biscuits.

J

PS I think going for a word association game may be off topic tho... 
--
Beer, bikes, and backpacking
http://b.42q.eu/

quixoticgeek

  • Mostly Harmless
Re: The Anti 1x thread
« Reply #80 on: 06 December, 2019, 11:23:02 am »
Stick them to the fridge magnets.  Less exposure to wet, corrosive stuff.  I've got a set of 7S ones that date from the last time I had a 7S chain...

Hey no fair, you edited your post so now my reply doesn't make sense :(

J
--
Beer, bikes, and backpacking
http://b.42q.eu/

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: The Anti 1x thread
« Reply #81 on: 06 December, 2019, 05:21:43 pm »
Stick them to the fridge magnets.  Less exposure to wet, corrosive stuff.  I've got a set of 7S ones that date from the last time I had a 7S chain...

Hey no fair, you edited your post so now my reply doesn't make sense :(

You managed to quote my reply in the time it took between me realising that a bit more context would probably help and the edit request submitting.

You'd have lost at Mallett's Mallet anyway.  Biscuits don't go in the fridge.

quixoticgeek

  • Mostly Harmless
Re: The Anti 1x thread
« Reply #82 on: 06 December, 2019, 06:38:03 pm »


You managed to quote my reply in the time it took between me realising that a bit more context would probably help and the edit request submitting.

You'd have lost at Mallett's Mallet anyway.  Biscuits don't go in the fridge.

They do in summer, else the chocolate melts...

J
--
Beer, bikes, and backpacking
http://b.42q.eu/

quixoticgeek

  • Mostly Harmless
Re: The Anti 1x thread
« Reply #83 on: 07 December, 2019, 05:52:38 am »

Just to add another data point re rust on expensive trains.

On Thursday on my way home from work it was raining for some of the ride, and the roads had been salted. As such when I got home I went to the drastic length of putting the bike in the shower, and rinsing it off. I then left it about 24 hours before putting lube on.

Despite my best efforts not to wash the drive train, it was pretty dry, and i noticed some surface rust on some of the rollers, I also noticed a little surface rust on the wear side of the teath on some of the rear sprockets.

I'm actually surprised, that chain is less than 300km old, and is a KMC X11sl. I'm hoping that it's just very mild surface rust, and will rub off quickly when I start riding today, and in doing so doesn't shorten the life too much.

J
--
Beer, bikes, and backpacking
http://b.42q.eu/

Re: The Anti 1x thread
« Reply #84 on: 07 December, 2019, 09:18:22 am »
Bare steel starts rusting in damp conditions in about five minutes.
Rust never sleeps

Re: The Anti 1x thread
« Reply #85 on: 07 December, 2019, 09:27:19 am »
at one time I used a MTB to commute and I could do it half on, half off road. The round trip took the thick end of two hours if the conditions were bad.  Between mud and road salt I soon found that the best option for me was to wash the whole bike every day, including the transmission. [I had a pressure washer that could be connected to the hot tap for this purpose; it only took five minutes to do].  I found that I didn't need a very good chain lube to last a single day, and that if a water displacing lube was used on the (now clean) chain in the evening, and left overnight to dry, there was usually enough lube on the chain for the following day.  I chose the lube on the basis that it only had to last one day, and it was easier for me if it came off the chain easily in a  hot jetwash.

I used to check the bike in the middle of the day, just to be sure I hadn't picked up a slow puncture or something.  Occasionally there was so much road salt that the lube would already  be overwhelmed and the chain would be starting to go rusty when I checked the bike at lunchtime. On a few occasions some extra lube was required to stop the chain from developing stiff links that would be troublesome on the way home.  I think that (extreme) amount of road salt would have gone through any chain lube, given time, and that many chain lubes would start to suffer/fail inside a day or two.  TBH I have not found a winter  chain lube yet that provides really good protection (that lasts days or weeks)  from road salt that isn't also something of a dirt magnet.

FWIW once the chain is really clean, you don't need a very super water displacing lube to displace the remaining water and thus stop the chain from rusting significantly overnight. But if the chain is in any way dirty or still contaminated with road salt, very few(simple) water displacing lubes are worth putting on a chain; they are most likely to be ineffective.

Regarding chains, there are various treatments applied to  new chains which inhibit wear and/or make the chain look shiny.  If you are prepared to spend a lot you can get chains which last longer because the hard coatings don't wear off/through very quickly. But in a mid-price chain the main benefit of a shiny plated  finish is that it allows you to see more easily if the chain is dirty or not; if you examine such a chain when it has done a few hundred miles, you will usually find that the shiny finish as already been worn away where the chain surfaces contact one another and this means that it cannot provide any protection (where it is really needed) against corrosion.

 Corrosion between the side plates/under the rollers is mainly annoying (although rust is acidic and also corrupts chain lube faster than normal) but rust inside the bushings soon follows and this causes the chain to wear out double-quick. For example folk who mainly use their bike once a week in winter report to me that often, the chain develops stiff links where it has been left standing , usually in the part of the chain which is in the RD  (possibly this stays wetter for longer when the bike is stored or something).  Anyway, after a few goes at this, when you go to use a chain wear checker, you often get rather variable results on such chains; depending on when it is checked, the most rusted links will either measure too short (because they still have rust inside the bushings) or too long (because the rust has caused faster wear than normal).

Some folk -by virtue of where and when they ride- are never very likely to ride on a freshly gritted road, but those who do can suffer spectacular corrosion on their bikes unless they take preventive measures.

cheers

Re: The Anti 1x thread
« Reply #86 on: 07 December, 2019, 01:30:59 pm »
On steel rusting quickly - several years ago I worked in the workshop of an importer repairing hydraulic breakers. We had a parts washer (a bit like a giant dishwasher) to clean and degrease the bits including cylinder bushings (which were from inside the hammer and therefore clean steel). The parts washer as supplied by our dutch colleagues had the water temperature a bit too hot. As a result cylinder bushings were already starting to rust before the basket of the parts washer had stopped spinning! (About 15mins from start of cycle). Lowering the water temperature helped a lot!

bludger

  • Randonneur and bargain hunter
Re: The Anti 1x thread
« Reply #87 on: 07 December, 2019, 10:07:56 pm »
The only way out seems to be an IGH and a fully-enclosed chain guard like the hebie chainglider. My neighbours gazelle has one, I expect it's got a chain inside it you could eat your tea off.

http://thorncyclesforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=2233.0
YACF touring/audax bargain basement:
https://bit.ly/2Xg8pRD



Ban cars.

Re: The Anti 1x thread
« Reply #88 on: 07 December, 2019, 10:45:02 pm »
Not entirely IME, though they do tend to be cleaner than derailer transmissions. Flipping it, one advantage of a full chaincase is that whenever crud's on the chain won't come off on your clothes, so you can just add some sticky/long-lasting lube every x-thousand miles and forget about it until the next time. I don't think I've ever worn out a chain on any bike I've owned with an enclosed transmission - next time I'm doing maintenance on the bakfiets I must check what the chain stretch is.