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Rohloff Internal Hub Gears / Re: Rohloff drivetrain wear: when to replace chain, sprocket, chainring?
« Last post by martinf on Today at 10:59:15 AM »If we were really concerned, we'd run wider chains, in a full chaincase, in an oil bath, and expect it to last the lifetime of the bike.
Doing a version of that on my old utility bike. 1/8" TA chainring, 1/8" Sturmey-Archer sprocket and 1/8" KMC e101 chain, which is supposed to last for 10,000 kms or more (with the dedicated KMC chainring and sprocket that I don't have). Under a ChainGlider.
ChainGlider isn't quite a full chaincase, but it does protect against a lot of the muck picked up during all weather and/or off-road riding. In very wet conditions water gets in and will end up washing off the greasy coating provided by the manufacturer on the new chain. So there is still a bit of maintenance to be done, but much less than on an unprotected chain. Where I live, we had 35 consecutive rainy days in January and February 2026.
At the moment I just use an oily wet lube on the chain when the manufacturer's lube has gone, but I might try a chain grease advertised for motorbikes. I tried that in the past on an unprotected chain, but it picked up a lot of road dirt so it was worse than an oily wet lube, it might work better than an oily lube under a chaincase.

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