burritos

What mileage frequency is that for you?

noglider 

I wish I could tell you, but I don't know. I have lots of bikes and don't keep track very well. I keep meaning to do it, but it could get to be an obsession with eight bikes. Keeping them all ready to ride is hard enough.

burritos

It's been 4k miles, the chain is skipping and chain measuring device fits in the gap now. Change chain correct?

Sardines

Pretty much. I usually push the envelop of 0.75 before I change. I've found waxing the chains helps with longevity. Over 2x more.

pdlamb

I'm guessing you'll need to change the cassette as well; hopefully the chainrings are OK.

This reminds me of why we need a torque wrench sometimes. "Crank it down until it breaks, the stop tightening the replacement a quarter turn sooner." You're about to find out why the chain wear advice is to measure and replace the chain before you get to pay for all the other drivetrain parts.

rekmeyata

6 Useful Facts About Your Bike Chain | Bicycling

Technically speaking a chain can last 8,000 if taken care of, in the old days of wide chains I use to get 12,000 on average. The reason bike shops change chains is mostly for money, same reason for replacing cables every season...it's nuts! I'm running the original cables on my one bike I've ridden since 2013, and it's only now they need to be considered to be replace for this coming season, and that's about 2,000 to 2,500 miles a year on that particular bike. Geez even when I use to race my cables lasted 2 1/2 to 3 seasons. But again, a lot of this is about money when you walk into a bike shop unknowing about your bike and ask them to do an annual checkup, and lo and behold your chain and cables need to be replaced, and some shops will say that when you replace the chain you need a new cassette, which is BS too.

Read this discussion with real life riders, there is a cat 1 race who gets at least 10,000 miles on a chain and cassette, and another guy further down that also reports 10,000 miles, and this discussion is just a very small sampling: how many miles does a chain last ? — BikeRadar

Couple of more here on this forum: https://forums.thepaceline.net/showthread.php?t=226495

One guy here finds his chain still useable after 5,000 miles, another at over 6,000, and others here: https://weightweenies.starbike.com/f...c.php?t=161927

So, I seriously believe that short life of 1,000 to 3,000 miles on road bike chains is (mostly) simply failure to maintain the chain properly, OR, riding in extremely dirty and or wet environments, or MTB/gravel riding, all of which is understandable for short chain life. Even when I lived in the Mojave Desert of California, the sand out there was very fine and the slightest wind would get it to blow and deposit itself on my chains, I still got 5,000 on chains, of course I was cleaning them a lot more and reapplying the lube more frequently.

I'm perfectly fine if you don't accept what mileages I get, or others, I know what I get, the rest is up to you to figure out.

zandoval 

So True... I went through three SRAM chains in two years on one bicycle and I certainly did not ride it 9 to 12 thousand miles. One of them did not last more than 6 months and that's the point. I suspect that it was a knock-off copy but it must have been a good one cause I did not really see any difference in the packaging or the chain itself. I did note that I was ridding in allot of dirty single track light gravel over that period of time. That might have something to do with it but I do clean and lubricate my chains frequently. I don't use anything special to measure my chains as use 6-8 speed chains. I check the wear by lifting the chain on my big ring up front and I use a ruler over 12 links. I have worn out several ChiCom Shimano freewheels and only one chainring that was an aluminum 34T. For me wearing out chains and freewheels has not been a big matter cause I kinda stay with the economical stuff...

base2 

Yep. It's all an organized conspiracy from big bike to bilk suckers from their dollars.

Tell us more...

rekmeyata

..

Russ Roth

When 9sp chains came out there was a trend towards them not lasting as long which became worse with 10sp, it was very annoying having customers who went from 8 to 10sp discovering their chains and cassettes didn't last as long. From my experience as a mechanic at several shops, if the chain tool fit at .5 and not at .75, if the chain was replaced it would mesh with the cassette just fine and you could do this several times with decent results. But if the chain easily allowed the tool to drop in at .75, you were liable to have skipping, in which case just run it longer till both the chain and cassette are too worn. Of course, as cogs became thinner going to 9 and then 10sp, it also meant the cogs could wear faster compounding the problem, and add in how often the person actually shifts.
When you add the issue of trying to mesh what can be a more stretched chain with a potentially more worn cassette, to the fact that the customer, who is rarely right, doesn't understand why there's problems after changing just a chain, and is a pain in the ass when things don't work perfectly, its better to change it all then to deal with them later. So if you come in with a chain that nearly measures .75 after one or even two seasons I know your chain won't last another in all likelihood, so I'm going to recommend a new chain. Now I don't know if you spend all your time in the flats shifting between your 13t and 14t or if you shift for everything under the sun and give all your gears an equal number of miles, nor can I accurately check for it. What I do know is I don't want to charge you for a tune up and chain and have you back in another 3 weeks whining that we did a lousy job because the new chain isn't sitting pretty with the old cassette, even if only in one gear. You'll be angry, you won't want to wait, you'll demand answers on why it isn't right when you paid for it, you'll bad mouth me, the shop or both and you'll be a pain in the ass. So I'll sell you a cassette and move on with the goal of not having to see that bike until next year.
As to cables, we never changed cables unless the owner asked, the cable was fraying, there was noticeable resistance in the shifting/braking, an obvious kink in the system, or the shifter/brake lever was being replaced. If I go to adjust the brakes or der which should be done first at the fixing bolt and notice the cable has been wiggled enough to start fraying, I'm not screwing with the cable and just changing it. If it seems harder to shift, the shifting is lagging or the brake lever isn't springing back I'll start with the cables as the low hanging fruit of the fix.
None of these are meant to be some money grab conspiracy on the part of the bike shop, its just not wanting to deal with whiny Karens and Kens. I haven't been a shop mechanic in years and the understanding I gained still informs how I fix my own, family's and friends' bikes. I don't want to deal with issues mid-season and I don't want to be guessing about if things will or won't work long term. Just replace and move on with the ride.

cyccommute 

Pray tell us how we can all reach this magical 8000 miles? Or the 10,000 miles that others have claimed? What is the magic procedure that you’ve discovered and does it involve sacrificing a goat?

“Claimed” is the operative word. I’d say it more like overestimated.


While I agree that cables don’t need to be changed that often…until Shimano decided that kinking them regularly was a good idea. 9 speed STI, downtube shifters, barend, or mountain bike shifters don’t need changing all that much. 10 speed Shimano and above with their weird routing should be changed far more often…before they have a chance to break and fray which makes changing them much more difficult.

As to changing the chain and cassette, I suspect that is to keep the bike from coming back to the shop. New chains and old cassettes don’t play together well and the shop is probably trying to avoid a liability issue if the rider crashes due to a skipping chain. But if someone is going to run a cheap chain for 8000 or 10,000 miles, they probably are going to need a new cassette. As someone whose bikes never see the inside of a shop once they are bought (and may never have seen the inside of a shop as a whole bike), I’ve experienced skipping chains many times…especially if I’m trying to push a chain further than it really should be pushed.


Bit of conformation bias there. There’s a couple of people who get 10,000 miles out of a chain but there are a whole bunch more who get closer to 3000 miles. Being a scientist, I find outliers to be interesting and worth some investigation. However, for the most part, outliers usually point to some kind of error in the measurement. They are usually not a valid data point.

Again, what is this magical system that gives you 8000 miles on a chain? Tell the rest of us so that we can break the back of Big Chain!

Big claims require big evidence. You say it’s up to the rest of us to figure out your magical system. Why? You aren’t Penn and Teller so why not share your secrets? Of course, I’d want to see multiple tests on multiple chains in multiple conditions as well as detailed mileage logs before I’d accept your “word” since you are so far outside the norm.

However, I don’t understand all the ink that has been spilled and electrons that have been killed on the idea of extending the life of a relative cheap piece of bicycle equipment. At 3000 miles, a $20 chain costs 0.006¢ per mile while the same chain cost 0.002¢ per mile if you go 8000 miles. I can squeeze a penny so hard that snot comes out of Lincoln’s nose but I’m not sure I need to squeeze hard enough to get brain matter to come out.

ClydeClydeson

On my first good road bike I probably had close to 10000 km on the first chain when I bothered to think about changing it, but I was already planning to change some parts to change the 7sp to 8sp, so I put a new cassette on. It worked but was very noisy, esp in the small chainring... I eventually realized the chainring was worn and the new chain was not meshing with it properly.

I have seen bikes go many 1000s of kms in abusive conditions without a chain replacement, but when the wear becomes so great that the drivetrain is not performing reliably, IME all the parts need to be changed - chain, cassette, and rings. If the 'worn' chain is still functioning on its original worn cassette and rings, there is no drawback to leaving it on, aside from maybe slightly sloppy or slow shifting.