SethAZ 

For several years now I've been putting the chains on my bikes using master links rather than the Shimano link pins, specifically because it's really easy to get the chain off and on the bike for a thorough cleaning.

Here are some photos I just did. The drivetrain of my Lynskey was brand new as of one week ago. I road 30 miles with the cassette and chain that it came with, then put that cassette and chain aside and put on a more optimized cassette (12-25t instead of the default 11-32t it came with) and a brand new Dura Ace chain. I left the factory lube on the chain and rode it around 150 miles or so. The drivetrain was still quiet as the grave, felt good, etc.

I wanted to try some NFS lube that I'd been reading about. I normally use wax/moly/teflon but wanted to see what the deal was with NFS, since so many people rave about it. Before applying the NFS I put the chain in a plastic paint bucket thing from Home Depot that had a lid on it. I barely covered the chain with odorless mineral spirits, shook it, let it soak for 15 minutes or so, thoroughly shook it again, removed the chain and hung it up to dry.

The mineral spirits of course turned black/dark gray from the combination of the dissolved factory lube and the black crap that develops on a chain that is partly dirt, and partly metal wear particles and such. I lowered a powerful rare earth magnet into the solvent and swirled it around so that the ferrous wear particles (and the gunk that was stuck to them) would be attracted to the magnet.

None of this is new: we all know that a magnet can attract wear particles from a chain. The reason I'm posting this is that I wanted to illustrate just how much of this wear particle/gunky debris there was in a high-quality, brand new chain with only 150 miles on it, used on a brand new drive train that by this time only had 180 miles total on it. Some of this may be due to the new metal surfaces "breaking in" against each other. I will say, though, that when I've done this in the past with my "previously enjoyed" drive train on my other bike, and well broken-in chains, I got similar levels of wear particle gunk on the magnet each and every time I relubed.

So if all you do is wipe the chain down with a rag, and then pour more lube onto it, you're quieting down your chain, and lubing it too, but the chain still has a ton of tiny wear particles in it and on it that you're not getting rid of. I believe that leaving those wear particles in the chain and just relubing will result in a faster rate of chain wear. I can't prove that with data, but it stands to reason if there's this much wear material in the chain after just 150 miles, it's not harmless. It's going to have an effect.

The magnet with the wear particle/gunk stuck to it, next to the plastic bucket I soaked it in. I included the derailleur idler pulley in the photo just for a sense of scale.



Closeup of the magnet with all the crap stuck to it.



The now-clean magnet after I wiped all the wear particle gunk off it onto the paper towel.


Note how fine the gunk appears to be after it was wiped onto the paper towel. I've looked at other samples of this stuff with a 30x loupe before and could actually see little silvery metal particles, though they're too small to pick up with the naked eye.

If you don't thoroughly clean out your chain from time to time these particles will still be in your chain, around the pins, along the side plates, on the rollers, etc. You can add new lube, and that might (or might not) flush out some of this ferrous wear debris. If you want it gone, however, the best way is to remove the chain, put it some kind of grease-cutting fluid that can actively flush it all out, then let the chain dry and relube. If I were really anal about it I'd put it through another rinse or two in clean solvent after fishing it out of the dirty solvent, but I figure one good rinse is probably good enough. The vast majority of the debris is still in the solvent when the chain is removed.

SethAZ 

When I rotate this chain out for another Dura Ace chain in a couple of weeks I'll rinse it in mineral spirits again to see how much wear debris accumulates after 300 miles or so with NFS lube.

Big Wally

+1.
Recently began chain removal and solvent soak (gas) followed by rag wipe and air dry. Then soaking in hot wax and re-wipe. Remarkably cleaner chain than doing the on-bike brush/cage/solvent drill. And the 5-10 minute hot wax soak (until bubbles quit appearing when chain stirred) gets the best lube where it needs to be for best results. Silent chain, much cleaner drivetrain due to much less dirt and dirty lube shedding. I’ve settled into 400 mile service intervals, drivetrain still looks pretty clean but starts to sound dry. Next solvent soak removes more grit than a finger surface wipe suggests is present. Never had a chain this clean or silent before. Credit both the cleaning and lube methods. Reusable masterlink recommended.

Colnago Mixte

Ordering a 6 pack, and a KMC master link tool right now. $25 for everything. Wow, that's not a bad deal.

FlashBazbo

Some people might consider this a tad OCD. Do you drive a car? How often do you dismantle and flush the bottom end of the engine?

I bet there's a treatment for this. Do they still do electro-shock therapy?

Nachoman

Maybe I only get 3,500 miles on my chain, instead of 4,000. But I don't care.
I prefer to just lube, wipe and ride.

Reynolds 

Some cars used to have magnetic oil drain plugs in engines/transmissions. They usually came out with metal particles stuck.

SethAZ 

My car's oil system has a filter. Does yours?

Darth_Firebolt

i do have magnetic tipped drain plugs in all of my vehicles. there's a surprising amount of magnetic material on each one every time the oil is changed. 4 cars, 2 motorcycles (one with an oil drain plug and transmission fluid drain plug), 1 lawn mower.

Carbonfiberboy 

I admit to allotting most of my bike time to riding and very little to maintenance. My bikes are almost never show quality, but the bikes and components have a good wear record and I get to use them a lot. I'm OK with that.

TimothyH

Just let the mineral spirits sit and the dirt will settle to the bottom. The clean stuff can be decanted and the dirty stuff recycled.

Old bike bottles work fine.

Doctor Morbius

+1. Been doing this method for a couple of years now. Every 300 miles I remove the MissingLink and soak it in a jar of mineral spirits for a day or two, shake profusely, then put the chain in another jar with clean mineral spirits and repeat. Works like a charm. Haven't tried the magnet, but I like the idea.

Why isn't OCD in alphabetical order? That really bugs me!

SethAZ 

My point was actually less about how to separate out the particles from the solvent, and more about showing just how much of the crap that's in the black sludge we clean off our bikes is actually ferrous material, which is presumably almost entirely wear particles from the chain/cogs/chainrings. It's not just dirty grease; it's stuff that presumably will accelerate the wear of the components, and hence probably something that people who want to extend the life of their components would prefer to clean out regularly.

Everyone has their limits of what time and effort they're willing to put into whatever they do, including bike maintenance. If I were truly focused on absolutely eliminating everything I'd have to do this after every ride. Those 150 miles were only about five rides, so a non-trivial amount of wear debris would presumably be present in the chain after just one ride. I'm not going to thoroughly clean and then relube after every ride though.

Since I've decided with this new bike on a program of rotating between two high quality chains as a way of allowing my chains and cogs/chainrings to wear together and hopefully extend the life of them all, it's pretty easy to just drop the chain in a bucket with some solvent and clean it thoroughly when it's time to rotate chains. This is a no brainer for me.

One other thing I've done is to put a chain in an old spaghetti jar with some solvent in it and then put that in my ultrasonic cleaner. Unfortunately my ultrasonic broke and I'm waiting on its replacement. Agitating the bucket or jar by hand seems to do a pretty good job though.

I'm really interested in seeing how the NFS lube performs. I got the Silca version of it, since it was on Amazon. I've been using a wax/moly/teflon mix on chains on my other bike, and it works fantastically, but has to be reapplied fairly often (I was doing it every 1-2 weeks and by the time I did I was hearing a little chain noise, though whether that's actually the chain wearing more or not I can't say). One huge thing I like about the hot wax method is that it's nice to be able to touch, bump into, or handle the chain without getting black oily chain crap all over. Since I'll be rotating my chains every 300 miles or so (about two weeks on average) I'll have to reapply the NFS every two weeks anyway, so it won't really be better than the wax in that respect. I'll be interested in seeing how much ferrous debris comes out with my first solvent cleaning of this current chain after a couple weeks running with the NFS.

f4rrest

I did this when I was new, too.

Now I don't bother and ride more.

SethAZ 

I used to be a dick to people on forums when I was new, too. Then I grew up (a little).

f4rrest

With experience, I just found it to be a waste of time.

Nothing to get upset over.

SethAZ 

It's possible that it is a waste of time. If it only extended chain life by 10%, for instance, then that's like $3.50 worth of a $35 chain. How much is my time worth? I guess with me I actually like doing stuff like this. Stuff like this pulls me in a little deeper and I feel like I get to know my equipment better, how it works, etc. I honesty don't feel like stuff like this is a distraction from what I really want to be doing. I want to both ride my bike, and know my bike, and feel like I "get" my bike, if you know what I mean.

Anyhow yeah, it's unknown to me how much money I'll save in chain/cog/chainring wear over time doing these deep cleans of my bike chains. It's also not just about the money for me. Everyone's different.

In terms of the tone, though, and why I responded the way I did, just go back and re-read your original post, and try to imagine that you're someone else reading it. Can you not see how condescending and dismissive that comes across?

gregf83 

It’s not clear why wear particles from the chain are any worse than grit picked up from the road. Grit is more likely to contain silica which will do more harm than metal particles.

Personally, in the winter I just wipe the chain with wd40 and re-lube. I wax in the summer but just drop the chain into hot wax without any extra cleaning.

SethAZ 

I have the Park Tool master link tool. I've been using KMC master links, but just picked up some of the new Shimano ones. They're supposed to be shipping now with the new Dura Ace chains, but the two chains I got still had the link pin. Shimano and others claim these links shouldn't be re-used, but I choose to interpret that as I use the links with a given chain, and when the chain gets thrown out I throw out the master link with it. I'm not about to use a brand new master link every single time I pull the chain off the bike. I don't think that's necessary at all. The only reason I think they say this is that when you put the link on the first time it takes some effort to get it on and expanded outwards to its final position. After it's been on and off a few times it gets easier to put on and just pull the chain tight with your hands and the link opens up to it's in-use position. I'm betting their lawyers are worried that someone will somehow have their chain loosen up so much with a previously-enjoyed master link that it comes apart and then works itself off the chain. It's never happened to me, but that's not to say it's impossible. I think that by chucking the link when I chuck the chain I'll probably never run into any problems, even if I pull it off and put it back on five or six times over the life of that chain.

SethAZ 

I'm with ya about the silicon and whatnot. Here's something, though: the road grit originates from outside the chain and hits the surface, and has to get worked into it. A chain wipe-down after a ride or two will probably get a lot of this off. The wear particles originate from where the chain wear is actually happening, and probably much of it stays there with the lube it was in contact with when it was formed.

The solvent rinse will get rid of both of them, so either way it's covered.

f4rrest

I get it. It's not a waste of your time if you enjoy it. I used to.

For me, the mileage has taken its toll in terms of having any interest in or energy for more than minimum bike cleaning and maintenance. I lost that passion, unfortunately.

SethAZ 

I haven't lost it yet, but who knows, I may stop caring in the future and just revert back to occasionally dumping more lube on it. I don't, for instance, pay the same attention to my car as I do to the bike.

ps: I had a look with a 30x loupe at the now-dried black sludge from those pics in the OP just now. There were some surprisingly large particles of steel that I could see in it, and could even see them glinting with the naked eye when I held them in the light at just the right angle. Most of the particles are so small I couldn't see them even through the loupe, but obviously they're there because they stuck to the magnet. Useful info? Who knows, but I found it interesting, and hoped others would too.

Samuel D

Removing the chain is the only way to properly clean it, as you have proved. However, it’s a messy, time-consuming job.

Therefore I’d be interested to hear clever methods to store the solvents, reduce the volume of contaminated solvent dumped into the environment, and reduce the mess, smell, and storage clutter in the home.

If it was easy, we’d all do it.

FlashBazbo

I believe in bike maintenance, but if I did this to my chain every 150 miles, I would be doing it once or twice a week. I would probably cause more wear and slack by installing and removing the connecting link than I was saving by the OCD maintenance routine.

I know this will shock and horrify . . . I ride over 7,500 miles per year. I ride rain or shine. I lube a chain (on the bike) about every 2,500 to 3,000 miles. Chain works great. On its birthday, I replace chain and cassette, just because. (Gives you cold chills, doesn't it?)


Roller chains are incredibly robust pieces of kit. They are used in industrial, agricultural, and automotive applications that exert vastly greater loading and speeds than a bicycle can ever conceive -- and they last for years in those applications. (In truth, I probably replace mine a lot more frequently than necessary.)

bikecrate

I'd much rather ride than wrench. Sure I get a sense of accomplishment fixing some things, but my bike is never going to be that clean, so I do the minimal wipe and lube.