07-16-2018, 06:32 AM
I’ve noticed over the past few weeks that on both my bikes, the drivetrain is making a little more noise than I’d like.
Normally, I just clean and lube the chain, and all’s well and things quiet down, but that’s stopped working. I started to think about why that might be, and decided it might be related to chain wear (“stretch”), where the distance between the rollers increases enough that it causes engagement issues at the cogs, since their pitches no longer match.
Some simple measurements confirmed my suspicion - both bikes have close to 4000 km on them now, and were worn at 0.4% and 0.8% respectively. I dug around and found out that 0.75% is the recommended maximum elongation of a chain prior to replacement in order to prevent damage to the cogs.
I was able to find a chain locally for my bike with the greater elongation over be weekend - and man, talk about nigh and day! My bike is back to being near-silent again, and it’s bliss!
My challenge for the other bike is to find a KMC X10.93 chain at 118 links - seems to only comes on 116 links, which is too short for my largest gear.
Just wanted to share in hopes it might help others; this was such a simple fix.
Normally, I just clean and lube the chain, and all’s well and things quiet down, but that’s stopped working. I started to think about why that might be, and decided it might be related to chain wear (“stretch”), where the distance between the rollers increases enough that it causes engagement issues at the cogs, since their pitches no longer match.
Some simple measurements confirmed my suspicion - both bikes have close to 4000 km on them now, and were worn at 0.4% and 0.8% respectively. I dug around and found out that 0.75% is the recommended maximum elongation of a chain prior to replacement in order to prevent damage to the cogs.
I was able to find a chain locally for my bike with the greater elongation over be weekend - and man, talk about nigh and day! My bike is back to being near-silent again, and it’s bliss!
My challenge for the other bike is to find a KMC X10.93 chain at 118 links - seems to only comes on 116 links, which is too short for my largest gear.
Just wanted to share in hopes it might help others; this was such a simple fix.