Why change my chain?

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Okeydokey

Active Member
I'm not entirely sure about the bottom metric, it looks to me that the chain will no longer stretch, therefor will not need replacing? Probably read that wrong but its certainly my experience.
 

fossyant

Ride It Like You Stole It!
Location
South Manchester
The short answer is that your chain will fail sooner rather than later, sooner if on fixed and this is not a good situation to find oneself in. When this happens you will also then have to buy a new sprocket, probably a chainring and of course a chain, definately new shorts and possibly new teeth. Finally it may also damage the paintwork when it does fail [not to mention you]. :smile:

Fixed that for you.

If you are lucky you'll just have to replace chain and sprocket. Chainrings last much longer. I replace chain and sprocket every year on my fixed. Putting a new chain on a worn fixed sprocket will sound like a tractor, and you'll get horrible vibrations.
 
D

Deleted member 1258

Guest
Really interesting thread... I wonder over what kind of distance/time frame are we talking about. I wrestle with the concept of chain stretch being detrimental to my locus, never mind sharks teeth!

I usually cover around 3000 miles in a year on the fixed, normal routine is new cog and chain every 12 months and new chain ring every 2 years., on my geared bike which does 2000 miles or less a year I replace the chain every year and manage 3 chains before I have to change the cassette.
 
I think this goes to show there is no hard and fast rule, except of course you must change components regularly. My chain is changed 4 or 5 times a year and my cog whenever it gets noisy when I put the new chain on, probably once a year. The chainring on my Pearson has done 60,000 miles and is still ok.
 
By its very nature, a chain on a single speed/fixed setup will generally last longer than a chain on a geared bike, not just because they're thicker, but also because on a geared bike once the chain starts to wear too much causing slipping of gears, it just becomes impossible to ride. With just 1 gear, you can get away with tightening the chain a bit more, for quite a long time, accepting that you're also then increasing wear on the spocket and chain ring.

I've seen some incredibly worn school kids BMX bikes which still work fine.
 

tyred

Legendary Member
Location
Ireland
I would never be any hurry to change a chain on a SS/fixed/hub geared bike. Everything will wear our together very gradually and you won't have the issue of skipping on the less worn part of the block that you have on a derailleur bike.

I have a 1930s Humber with Eadie coaster brake and the chain and sprocket are ridiculously worn and under close examination, the chain is actually parts of at least 4 different brands of chains and has several joining links and it all works fine. I would change it but replacement sprockets for these hubs are non-existent.
 
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