Factory lube/chaincase experiment (X8 chain, Chainglider, Surly SS & Rohloff)

[Andre Jute]

Thanks, John, Jim, Geo and Matt.

But ' glider fitted last autumn so dampness in shed and genera winter riding may have caused the rust.
Surely it cannot be airtight?

I don't quite see how any chaincase could be airtight without umpteen seals that are bound to troublesome. But I would expect much less rust on the chains of Chainglider users than one would see on an open chain. I'm surprised that my chain, on which every second link is plain steel, not nickel-plated, just like John's, doesn't show more rust. But my bike lives in a heated room, and hardly ever gets wet anyway. (The sort of water I cross is narrow, a tiny stream perhaps, so that the exposure of the tightfitting Chainglider is never long.)

I think that, from Hebie's viewpoint, we may be misusing the Chainglider. They made the Chainglider a neat chaincase to keep oil off the trousers of office-dressed commuters. I use the Chainglider as a zero-maintenance device. Many of you use it to extend transmission life (I have already done that with 3x success, now I'm trying to repeat that trick without any maintenance). From Hebie's viewpoint, we're probably a bunch of chancers demanding the impossible. And that doesn't even count Dan harassing them for not keeping up Chainglider chainring compatibility with Rohloff's latest permitted ratio spec (heh-heh!).

[Danneaux]

And that doesn't even count Dan harassing them for not keeping up Chainglider chainring compatibility with Rohloff's latest permitted ratio spec (heh-heh!).

And...I have never owned a bike with a rusted chain, Andre! Amazingly, even when I was commuting daily with the bike outside in the rain all day and never quite becoming fully dry, have I ever had rust start or develop on a bicycle chain. I keep them well-lubricated, then bounce the water off by gently lifting the bike a couple centimeters and then dropping, so the excess is shaken off, but not much more.

Maybe living where the roads aren't salted in Winter helps?

Best,

Dan. (...who has nearly given up hope a 36T Chainglider will ever be produced)

[Andre Jute]

John, sorry for the misunderstanding. Now that Jim and you have straightened me out about what exactly you're talking about, it becomes easier to make a comparison.

No wear is visible in the rear part of the chainring cover of my Chainglider. It's damned difficult to photograph meaningfully, so this is the best I could manage:



You're looking at the inside of a Chainglider at the back of the chainring. Neither Chainglider nor the Surly stainless chainring nor the KMC X8 chain have ever been cleaned in about three years and a bit over 3500km. You can see the imprint of 3500km of factory-lube-only running. The Chainglider, whose inside I couldn't avoid touching becuase at that point it is just flat rubber I'm bending away to photograph, left a very light oil smudge on my fingertips. (I was wearing Winsor & Newton's artist's barrier cream because I couldn't find my Swarfega or a tube of poncily perfumed Lidl barrier cream that I usually keep for bike use.)

[Andre Jute]

And...I have never owned a bike with a rusted chain, Andre!

I'm happy to join you in that select group, Dan. I've never owned a bike with visible rust on the chain.

By golly, my hypocrisy chokes me up — with laughter.

[Danneaux]

Thinking back on the occasional Forum reports of wear or noticeable noise from the Chainglider, I do see a possible correlation between seatstay interference and the Chainglider. Several members have indicated some interference between the upper run of the chain case and the inner part of the stay just above the dropout. If the Chainglider were unable to ehm, "glide" and was tipped as a result, that could account for some internal wear.  As I recall, Julian reported trimming a small notch in his Chainglider, solving all conflicts with his eXP R: http://www.thorncycles.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=9617.msg67215#msg67215

A friend sent me a photo last week, showing his problematic installation on a road-bike frame, since converted to Rohloff. The dropouts were cranked in such a way the Chainglider could not possibly be accommodated. His wails and screams of disappointment could be heard 'round the countryside, though most mistakenly reported it as the keening of high storm winds. I knew better.  

Not all applications are equally copacetic.  

All the best,

Dan. (...who still wants one, in size 36 Long, please)

[Andre Jute]

I think it possible that John's problem with the Chainglider could arise from manufacturing tolerances but doubt it. All the same, there are more than one generation, possibly already several, of Chaingliders, so we shouldn't forget that anything is possible.

However, I think it is more likely that John's problem lies not so much with John's Chainglider as with his chainring. The Chainglider demands a pretty narrow (literally, as in few units of measurement) chainring; it is well known that the attractive, longlasting Thorn chainring is too thick and causes drag, and presumably wear. It is also well known that the Surly stainless steel chainring is thin enough to fit the Chainglider, though the Surly's known out-of-round problems may cause other problems, as for Geo.

There does seem plenty of tolerance in the Chainglider in every direction except the thickness of the chainring. Here's my installation at rest, photographed with the crankbolt hardcentred by my Olympus camera's software. Notice that chainring is not centred in the Chainglider. You can judge by how much the chainring can move inside the Chainglider by three years worth of chain factory lube visible in the lower right quadrant.

In motion the Chainglider comes near to centring itself but photographing that would require contortions that are beyond me.

I would have expected a toothed, moving mechanism that can wander that much to mark the reinforced rubber of the Chainglider, precisely as John has experienced, but that isn't what happens in practice, at least not on my installation.

It would be really useful if we knew how the Chainglider works. The name is clearly misleading (if it weren't, there would be much more oil everywhere inside my Chainglider). I wonder if there is some sort of Bernouli effect, which is basically a very thin air layer between moving components, generated by their differential speed.

[Neil Jones]

Very interesting experiment Andre. I've been contemplating installing a Chainglider on my RST for some time now, it would doubtless be beneficial for my commute to work which I do year round whatever the weather. I'm always quite surprised to hear of chains being renewed after relatively low milages. I look after my bike but don't pamper it to extreme and I would be dissapointed if my chain lasted less than 6,000 miles. My chainring and sprocket have been reversed and I'm expecting to get about 20,000 miles out of them.

I'm keeping a close eye on this thread, mind you I bought a Thorn Chainring very cheaply that SJS had put on ebay during one of their clearing out sprees so it might have to wait until I hit the 40,000 mile mark, us Welsh can give the Scots a run for their money regarding thriftiness you know. 

Regards,
Neil

[Andre Jute]

...us Welsh can give the Scots a run for their money regarding thriftiness you know.  

I had a Scottish grandmother, and my beloved late mother-in-law was Scottish. I'll be watching you, young Neil. Heh-heh!

I'm always quite surprised to hear of chains being renewed after relatively low milages. I look after my bike but don't pamper it to extreme and I would be dissapointed if my chain lasted less than 6,000 miles.

I think it is relative, and the cyclist might have something to do with, and the quality of transmission consumptibles that he buys. When I ran open derailleur transmission and took whatever chain the LBS thought right to fit, usually SRAM PC1 and its predecessors, I never saw more than a 1000 miles on a chain. I just assumed that people who talked of thousands on RBT, a place full of trolls, were lying. Then I decided to get serious about cycling but assumed that Gazelle would fit the best, and my successive hub gearbox bikes from Gazelle and Trek came with Nexus transmission groups. I know now that they're cheap rubbish, but back then I was disappointed to get about the same 1000 miles on a complete transmission of chainring, chain, sprocket, maybe 1100 if I was lucky. I was infuriated at the inefficiency and the waste of my time (which was two grand an hour the last time it was available by the hour, decades ago). So I looked into it, and the Rohloff chain is one of the things that interested me in the Rohloff gearbox, which led me to the Thorn forum because Andy Blance, unlike so many bike "designers", isn't a bullshitter. (He's definitely an honorary Scotsman!)

And here I met Stu (moderator before Dan) and others, guys who clearly weren't trolls and weren't liars, talking about getting 10K miles on a chain like it was a commonplace. It was becoming clear that I am exceptionally heavy on my transmission, perhaps because I'm not a cadence pedalist but a masher. I'm a pretty solid guy, a retired rugby and polo player, and I just know I'm never going to make those big round mileages, in the first instance because I started cycling too late to learn a hummingbird cadence. (By contrast, the roadies point me out to each other. "That guy on the green bike has eight thousand on his tyres, and he says they'll make ten.")

So when by buying quality transmission components, including the chain, and enclosing the chain correctly (did I mention that the 1000m Nexus rubbish was run inside a big Dutch plastic chaincase and white-waxed and spotless, not grinding mud in the open), I achieved 4506km, near enough 3000m, I thought I was doing pretty good. I know, by your standards, I'm a wrecker, but by my previous standard, 3000m on a chain is nearly as good as a hummingbird cadence.

***

I suspect therefore that it isn't my mileage on a chain you want to watch so much as the relationship to my previous mileage, and then to apply the multiplier to your own circumstances and history. I also expect that guys who already get huge mileages are doing so much more right that I am not, and may not even know about,  that they won't get the full multiplier. It stands to reason that cyclists who are already getting really exceptional mileages out of transmission components cannot expect more than marginal improvements, whatever else they do.

***

Thing is, real quality components don't cost all that much more than rubbish. If I were a high-mile commuter like Stu or some others we hear from occasionally, I would have paid for the entire transmission chain (chainring, sprocket, chain, Chainglider) in the first year, because I started from so far back. I'm not in this for the cost-saving -- my kick is a maintenance-free bike -- but all the same that's a statistic that's bound to impress any quarter-Scot.

[geocycle]

Very interesting experiment Andre. I've been contemplating installing a Chainglider on my RST for some time now, it would doubtless be beneficial for my commute to work which I do year round whatever the weather. I'm always quite surprised to hear of chains being renewed after relatively low milages. I look after my bike but don't pamper it to extreme and I would be dissapointed if my chain lasted less than 6,000 miles. My chainring and sprocket have been reversed and I'm expecting to get about 20,000 miles out of them.

I'm keeping a close eye on this thread, mind you I bought a Thorn Chainring very cheaply that SJS had put on ebay during one of their clearing out sprees so it might have to wait until I hit the 40,000 mile mark, us Welsh can give the Scots a run for their money regarding thriftiness you know. 

Regards,
Neil

You might struggle with a glider on the  RST. The clearances are a bit tight meaning it doesn't sit very loosely and can rub the paint off the inside of the frame. The larger sizes might be better. It doesn't need to be much bigger and whittling can help.

[Neil Jones]

Thanks for that, I had read on previous threads that the Chainglider wasn't a perfect fit for the RST. It's a real shame but I wouldn't want to risk damaging the paintwork.

I'm afraid I hadn't thought about different riding styles affecting chain wear but you are right Andre. Fortunately I am a spinner so that would put less strain in the links. I am currently using a KMC X1 and it's the best chain I've used to date.

Neil

[Andre Jute]

I am currently using a KMC X1 and it's the best chain I've used to date.

You know of course that we're keenly interested in how well the X1 goes in your hands.

[Neil Jones]

After reading various accounts of Rohloff users maintenance schedule I decided that I would replace my chain every 5,000 miles and reverse the chainring and sprocket after 10,000. I used SRAM PCS 890 chains for the first 10,000 then which were more or less at their wear limit (75% on my Park Tools Chain Checker). I decided to change to the KMC X1 when I reversed the chain rings and sprocket, to be honest there was a fair bit of noise for the first 100 miles after reversal due to worn teeth and a new chain but it soon quietened down and became silent by 150 miles. I've just checked my chain at 13,500 miles and it is 50% worn so perhaps I won't get many more miles than the Sram although it feels/looks better quality if you know what I mean. I'm hoping to get 20,000 in before I replace the ring and sprocket then maybe I'll try a new method.

I don't really know how I compare to other Rohloff users chain/sprocket wear but I would be interested to hear what other people's methods are, I suppose that as the Rohloff is relatively new people are still experimenting. Of course one of the many reasons I decided Rohloff was the way to go was that the upfront costs would be recouped as the miles racked up so obviously the more miles I get out of components the better. I would much rather be peddling than meddling.

I will keep you updated on the X1 Andre.

Regards,
Neil

[Andre Jute]

 
Thanks, Neil. Fascinating to see how the other half lives and cycles.

I will keep you updated on the X1 Andre.

Looking forward to it. I was hoping/expecting that, considering the extra cost, and the claims for the X1, that it would do better than this, compared to experience with your previous chain. Of course, the X1 might possess an unequally distributed wear pattern, fairly fast wear on first being fitted, then a very slow decline.

I would much rather be peddling than meddling.

+1

[Matt2matt2002]

I put a X1 chain on my Raven last October.
At the same time, new sprockets and a chainglider.
Only done 500 miles since then.
In June I will tour fully loaded for 2 months.
I'll report back here in August on chain wear and performance of ' glider.
Matt

[Andre Jute]

I put a X1 chain on my Raven last October.
At the same time, new sprockets and a chainglider.
Only done 500 miles since then.
In June I will tour fully loaded for 2 months.
I'll report back here in August on chain wear and performance of ' glider.
Matt

Looking forward to it, Matt. In two months at 200 miles a day you'll get a good idea of how the X1 behaves too.