Judaism and the Mystery of Pedal Cycle Maintenance

[lethargic_man]

I am so hopeless with my hands. I spent ten minutes the other day trying to figure out how to close the special link on a chain I was putting on my bike; eventually I had to give up and call my father in.

The reason I was doing so was I'd been told at the end of last year that switching back and forth between two chains every six months prolongs the life of the gear cassette and range wheel, so you don't have to replace them (an expensive business!) every time you replace the chain. So I was told then; the other day a mechanic at the bike shop said that was only if you cleaned and oiled the moving parts every day. (I do so only from time to time.) I remember the narrator of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" arguing in favour of knowing how to service your bike, and knew that this was the right thing to do, but can I be bothered to clean and oil the thing every since day I take it out? Not bloody likely.

I intend to switch the chain back after six months and see if it improves the lifespan of the gear cassette regardless... but I've a sneaky suspicion I'm going to have difficulty getting the special link on the chain back open again.

Zen and the Art of Motor Cycle Maintenance? Hah! For me, it's more like:

Comments

[green_knight]

Great picture!

(How often *does* one replace the chain and gear cassette? In retrospect, my last proper bike probably could have done with that; this one is too new to have problems like that, and I don't ride it all that far.

[bluepork]

Depends how much and how hard you ride. And how clean you keep everything. If the gears are slipping and you can't prevent it by minor adjustments like tightening the cables, then you know the cassette needs replacing. You can also get a tool to check the chain "stretch". (As the links wear the distance between them gets longer. You can check with a ruler too, which is a little less convenient but gets around buying another single purpose tool. Alternatively just get your bike serviced regularly and they'll tell you!

[lethargic_man]

Once when I went into the bike shop, they measured the stretch on my chain and told me they'd never seen a chain so stretched and that I had to replace it or it would snap soon. I ignored them for a year (around 2400 miles of cycling) before finally worrying it would break eventually (as I twice had a chain do on me before) and doing so.

I suspect bike shop mechanics have an interest in getting you to change things too frequently, to make money for the shop.

[(Anonymous)]

Thats a bit conspiracy theorist for me! Think about it like this:

When you get something serviced, the idea is that the service means it doesn't wear to exhaustion, but it gets maintained to avoid failure. The bike shops probably go by guidance from the parts manufacturers. Given the uncontrolled nature of the wear on a bicycle, they probably have to build in quite a lot of tolerance, especially as most people (including yourself, by the sound of it) are not competent enough to fix a chain by removing a link, in the middle of a ride.

I've had two chains snap in my time. The first was on a second hand bike that I used to commute with an University. The snap occurred on the one time I took it for a longer spin. I was about 2 miles out of town. It was a long walk back. The second time occurred on Highgate Hill, on my way home. After pushing to the top, I was able to roll nearly the whole way back. It was kind of fun, seeing just how far I could get with gravity along. Neither bike was maintained properly.

I certainly would back a cautious approach on chain wear. They say that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. There is the chain in a bike and then there is the wider chain of the transmission system in a bike, of which the chain is a pretty essential component!

When I bought my new bike I determined to look after it properly, and pay for any servicing I couldn't do myself on a timely basis, and this approach has never let me down.

[bluepork]

I think the advice about changing your chain is wrong, in practice. It would only work if the wear on the chain was exactly matched to that on the cassette at all times. That depends on too many factors to control. Given the mileage you do, I think you would have to do it much more than once every six months. Otherwise you could end up actually accelerating the wear on the cassette. The normative advice is change the chain when you change the cassette.

Amusing past though.