I take the chain off, clean in a jar of paint thinner, dry off with a rag, lube with chain saw bar oil.
Every 250 miles or so.
Every 250 miles or so.
Bike chains
- Thread starter CourierDriver
- Start date
Nice bikes get cleaned with simple green and one of those chain scrubbers before lubing with liquid wrench chain and cable lube. Dries to a clear wax- something like T9- but extra wear prevention from organic moly.
When I used to ride one of the supposedly high performance chain lubes was Pedro's Syn Lube. I guess they're still around. Their instructions were to place drops in each link, work it in, than place another drop. But the rumor I heard was that it was just bulk Mobil 1 with a green dye.
+1 to that
- Joined
- Dec 28, 2011
- Messages
- 5,061
WD-40 and a shop rag. Spray, wipe clean. Re-apply the lube.
Keeping a chain clean won't necessarily increase the chain's life, but it will keep it shifting well. A dirty chain loses it's lateral flex; at best you'll experience poor shifting, at worst, you'll drop the chain when you are out of the saddle and shifting to sprint... (Ask me how I know that)
Get a chain stretch gauge and replace it when it it out of spec. Running a stretched chain will chew up the rear cassette, and you'll wind up replacing both. My 11 speed chains run about $45-50 and replacing my Ultegra 11 speed cassette would cost about $80+, excluding labor.
By the way, your weight and power will factor into the chain life more than anything else. Some of the smaller guys I ride with can go close to 10k on one chain. I'm 220 lbs and put down lots of watts, and I only get 1500 - 2000 miles before it stretches too much.
Yup! Big boys dropping power stretches chains. Usually get 1600-1800 miles a chain on road bikes.
