Chain guards

[Dude]

Stumbled on a test of a new chain guard from the German producer Herbie (maker of the strongest propstands availible!) in Active Radfahren magazine:

"Still prototype, mad optics, innovative:Kettenkasten from Hebie

Hebie, German manufacturer of Radschuetzern, stands as well as chain contactor models presented us first exclusively the KK 350, a "swimming chain guard", that easily at nearly all wheels with hub circuit to install leaves itself...

The closed chain guard, according to elevation IE marketing man Dominik whip "the only cantilever complete chain protection", can without tool from four parts be plugged together and is simple with a wheel breakdown to dismount. It holds at the wheel without further framework attachment. Been suitable for chain sheets with 38 teeth in front, 18-22 teeth in the back. The chain "swims" quasi therein.
Advantage: Clothes get less, small chain care expenditure, longer durability dirty.
Whip: "test result after over 20.000 km: no wear, no noises." According to Hebie the price under 35 euro could settle down. Which would be genuinly favorable. Distribution: starting from at the end of of May.
More over the Hebieprogramm c/o Tel.. 0521-91419-0 program by Mail request(service@herbie.de).
(source: hebie)"
http://212.227.38.137/web/aktiv-radfahren/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=209&mode=&order=0&thold=0
(Rough translation made with AltaVista: http://babelfish.altavista.com/)

Looks very similar to the other chain guards from Germany earlier in this thread!
Don´t know if it is superior to these, but it might be available from the British importer if they have one:
http://www.hebie.de/

[Dude]

Found that Active Radfahren Mag. also reviewed the chainguard from Utopia/Nöll:

"Clever made: Closed chain protection of Utopia  
 
(09.02.05/df) Many Radler estimate hub circuits, because they are totally enclosed and nearly maintenance-free. Wheel manufacturers Utopia offer now for its models as well as wheels with Rohloff circuit, to Shimano new inter 8 or Sram 7-Gang hub transmission a round around chain protection. A similar system gibt's also with Noell. Since Utopias "Country" protection straight runs in actively the wheel driving test, here to it...

A good chain protection possesses has many advantages: One does not have to make oneself concerns around dirty clothes. There is no quietschende chain after rain travels. With good Kettenschuetzern - like the presented Utopia Country - no noises arise with impact holes and rough plaster. And there is hardly still chain changes necessarily, because your chain keeps substantially longer.

Thus the Country functions: With the Country the chain is led surely and flexibly in PE pipes. These move with the chain and prevent noises, which develop in the housings.

The two plastic housings, which enclose the gear rims in front and in the back, are flexibly connected by bellows with the PE pipes. The bellows prevent that vibrations of the chain will transfer to the plastic housing. If the chain lengthens itself, one can pull the impeller calmly to the rear, PE of pipes has enough reserve.

The developing friction in PE pipes is not of importance. This principle became generally accepted with couch wheels, where the chains themselves are led with competitions by such pipes. The pipes have to be replaced long-lived and in the case of loss simply in the workshop.

Also the disassembly of the rear wheel is not a problem. One must unscrew in addition only a small cross-notched screw on the rear part chain protection and draw then the now free part of the rear chain protection diagonally downward, finished. Now the rear wheel can be dismantled in such a way, as one is used to it.

To which wheels does the Country fit? Naturally to all Utopia of bicycles, which are maximally 5 years old. With other bicycle makes the bicycle specialist dealer must examine whether the chain protection fits. It is important that the crank a tooth chain sheet possesses 38 or 44 -. crank and chain sheet must be bent. No screwed chain sheets, only pressed crank/chain sheet connection

Importantly: The Innelager must permit it that chain protection eyeglasses can be used. There are camp (e.g. of Shimano) not at the outside edge the frameworks pushes away separates is inward screwed. These camp cartridges do not fit.

The Kettenchutz fits in D rule with almost all wheels with Rohloff speed stroke 14 course transmission hub or with wheels with Shimano inter 8 (the new 8-Gang hub!!) as well as to wheels with Sram Spectro 7-Gg circuit.

With Rohloff only with more easily, middle and strong translation, in the back at least 16 tooth with the Sram 7-Gang with easier, strong and middle translation with in the back 18 and 22 tooth pinions. Take up rear pinion simply times with Utopia contact concerning 8-Gang Shimano.

As chain only narrow chain (1/2 x 3/32) may be used. Utopia uses the Wippermann Connex chain with left. With simple chains, which are sharp edged, the PE pipe can be damaged in the long term.

For re-tooling to other wheels Utopia means: "the experiences of the first two years show that in most cases the chain protection fits also to other wheels. Problems result always then if wrong cranks, gear rims or chains are used.

Which versions are there? There are two colors: Silver and black. Dreii remarks: For Rohloff speed stroke, Shimano Inter-8 as well as Sram 7-Gang. Two sizes: For chain sheet with 38 teeth. Or for chain sheet with 44 teeth

The Country is flexibly adaptable to Hinterbauten of different lengths. It fits also with Rohloff with rope box or disc brake. With Sram 7-Gang and Shimano Inter-8 is no matter it whether resignation or free-wheel.

wheel driving recommends actively to let the Country in a framework place install. We can give however no guarantee that the Country to all bicycle types in the market are fits! Price: Utopia Country chain protection 139 euro. More information over Utopia and Noell:
Information via Utopia requestsinformation via Noell building of bicycles requests
 08.02.2005 of Daniel Fikuart "
(http://212.227.38.137/web/aktiv-radfahren/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=150&mode=&order=0&thold=0
Rough translation made with AltaVista: http://babelfish.altavista.com/)

[strat]

The CTC's magazine,"Cycle" had an article in the June/July issue about the Hesling Excelle chaincase sold here by Cambridge Dutchbike. It qot quite a good review and cost about £20. More info is apparantly available by phone on 00051 20 612 3919 or e-mail on enquiries@dutchbike.co.uk. I haven't tried to contact them yet, but I probably will shortly. I'm off this week to Thorns to have a look at Ravens!

[Spudz]

http://www.dutchbike.co.uk/Bikes/xtrabigbike.htmhttp://

This link shows a bike with the Hesling Excelle chaincase.
Compared with the other chaincases mentioned in previous posts on this thread, the Hesling appears to be quite 'traditional' and perhaps heavier than the others.
Hope the link works

Spudz

[TonySmith]

I bought one of these from Cambridge Dutchbikes. They were very helpful and emailed pictures, measurements etc. I decided that for £20 I'd take a chance....so now I have a chaincase in the shed! From what I remember of my attempt the main problem was that the chain sits further out from the hub than most other hub gears so the guard fouls the seat and chain stays, also the standard crank supplied with the Adventure tour is actually a double so the extra set of bolt holes would need cutting off to get it to fit. CD did offer to take the case back and give a refund but it had gained a few scratches by then and hardly seemed worthwhile.
 I did discuss chaimnmcases with Robin before buying one. He informed me that a number of owners were interested and they may at some point produce their own. I sent him the link for the utopia-farrad one but he didn't think much of it.
 Anyone want to buy a sightly marked chaincase?

[marcg]

See my other posts and pictures of my Raven Sports with full chaincase.  Yes, you do have to fit a fifferent bottom bracket.  Mine has a 118mm BB instead of the standard 113mm - but my chaincase was fitted from new so I didn't have to replace the BB.  However, since then I found a very good condition Royce titanium 118mm BB which fitted for a bit of expereince. - Very easy to do.

You will need a slightly longer BB in order to fit a full chaincase.

[PeteW]

I have just bought a Pashley chain guard, but it seems that the chainset supplied with the bike is too fat (in both directions) to fit the chainguard. I have a Thorn triple chainset with only the outer ring fitted, but the tapered arms are too chunky, and the width across the redundant bolt fittings is too great to fit inside the guard. It seems that I will need to buy a different chainset to fit. Has anyone else had this problem, or found a way around it?[?]

[TonySmith]

Yes, see my post from 16th march! I did consider grinding the redundant fittings down but as I also needed to modify the BB mounting bracket to move the guard further out and melt the back and around the seat stay it was all getting a bit too bodgy so I abandoned it!

[Dude]

Alex Wetmore has a good article with pictures on how to fit a Pashley Chaincase to a singlespeed bike:
http://phred.org/~alex/bikes/chaincase.html
Good luck and have a Great Summer!!!

"I've spent most of my money on booze, women and the latest cycling gear I don't need.
The rest I've just wasted."

[Stijn]

I had a chance to examen the Noll, mentioned above, in Zurich. Acoording to the shop keeper it only fitted on 44 chain ring 16 sprocket. It looked to me like the guard would cause quite a bit of friction because it makes the chainring run in a slot which seals the chain from the elements. Also the chain runs through two plastic tubes which it will rub against. Also the metal brackets at the back didn't look very solid. It needs to be fitted behind the cap of the bottom bracket. I'm not yet sure this will work with an rotating eccentric BB like the ones on the Thorn frames.

As for the more conventional Guards, I'm not in favour of them anymore, I had them on all my bikes from the age of 10. The rateling of the chain agianst the plastic of the guard has put me off from fitting one on my Raven tour. I now use a dry lub on my chain which doesn't attract much dust, but I don't know if it will give me 10,000Mls, like Marc above

[graham]

If you are using/able to get older Shimano XT cranks (the original Octalink ones, M751 or M752), it is possible to make a good job of fitting a chainring guard. This clearly doesn't enclose the chain like a chain case but is a lot better than a fully exposed chain.

My Raven tour is now fitted with M752 cranks and a 'new' LX Octalink bottom bracket in 121mm length. The 113mm length gives a 47.5mm chainline (on the middle ring position), so the chainring fitted on the outer position is about 7.5mm further out or 55mm. Near enough to perfect chainline for the Rohloff hub. The 118 B/B would give 50mm chainline, which is what I'm using on the tandem. The 44t Thorn chainring has to be opened out by a friend with a lathe because it's made to fit the outer position of the spider, with a 88mm hole. The middle position, although it uses the same bolt holes, needs a 90mm hole to fit the spigot. But then the outer position is free for fittng a nice black Thorn bash guard. No spacers required and very neat. Obviously a 50mm chain line is about 4mm out, but this is only half the width of the chain and a lot better than many derailleurs are runnning much of the time.

However, the LX 121 bottom bracket has the extra 3mm all on the drive side. Must be because the current LX cranks push further on to the axle than the old XT. So I've got a 53mm chainline and a chainring guard fitted as described above on the solo.

Obviously the 'Q' factor must be fairly high, but I don't notice the difference personally.

[Ratty]

I contacted thourn to ask which of the chainguards mentioned in this thread they recommended.  

ie. Pashley
Noell
Utopia
Herbie
Hesling Excelle

They replied that the utopia is the best of a bad bunch.

Yikes!

I contacted Utopia and they want €150 for the chain guard incl. delivery. I cannot afford this much, especially for an ok product. Incidentally they had never heard of thorn before and were very interested.  Both started in the same year. I got the impression that they were a bit jealous of the low prices but their bikes do come with mudguards, racks, chainguards etc included.

Marcg paid only £30 for his pashley guard and seems happy so I have checked with Thorn to see if there are any issues with my particular bike.

Marc, are you still content?

Does anyone know of any other alternatives in the lower price range?

Anthony

[Ratty]

I contacted thorn to ask whether the pashley guard would be ok.  

They say that they do not like pashley products in general but that they will receive some Hesling guards in three weeks for testing and that I should  write back then to ask about these.

If these are also too expensive or no good I think I will buy a pashley guard anyway, even if it is only while I am saving up for a better guard and hoping that the prices drop / other, better guards become available. Even if pashley do make poor quality products I do not think that there is much that can go wrong with a chainguard as long as it fits my bike. One problem is that they have not replied to my e-mail.

Marc, did you ring them to get them to send you your guard?



Anthony

[ahconway]

Help me out here. Why would anyone want  to fit a chain guard to a tourer? Sure, if you're commuting in normal trousers, you'd want to protect the cuffs, but you can do that with a pair of of reflective ankle bands.

One alternative I saw at the Cycle Show was actually fitted to the step-through Raven. It's not a fully-enclosed chain guard, but it does seem to  be a good compromise, preventing major-league cuff shredding.

[Ratty]

The main reason for me is to protect the chain, not myself.

I want to keep salt, water, grit etc. off the chain to protect it and prolong its life and the time between cleaning and lubing.

According to jobst brandt commercial grinding powder is made from oil and sand which is why chains can wear so quickly.

I had hoped for much longer chain life with my adventure tour but have found that the chain wears just as quickly.  The only plus is that I can adjust the slack using the rotating bottom bracket.

A fully enclosed chain guard would allow me to put on a really sticky lube and not need to worry about it washing off or becoming contaminated.

Anthony