Checking Your Chain For Wear.

You Bike’s drive train takes a beating every time you go out on a ride, throw in some dirt, a drop of water and give it a good mix and you can almost hear those pound coins adding up as your drive train gets ground away. Chain wear is your bikes worst enemy so we wanted to help you with checking your chain for wear.

Dirt can grind away the chain joints, this results in premature wear which in turn will wear out your rear cogs and front rings As the chain wears it starts to stretch. This starts to wear the teeth of the cassette and chain rings away. If not picked up in time and you put a new chain on a old worn cassette. The new chain will have a standard length between the pins. This will make it not sit right in the teeth of the cassette. When you get the slipping under pressure its normally down to this. Which could indicate the drive train is worn which could mean a big bill somewhere down the line. If you have a high end bike a new cassette, and chain rings could be over £400. 

Cleaning Your Chain

Cleaning, decreasing and lubing your drive train regularly, particular after a wet or muddy ride using a chain cleaning device. You can find a few tips and videos on how to clean your bike in our post here.

How To Check The Chain

Cleaning your chain is just the first step. Checking your chain regularly with a chain checking tool for wear is also a good practice to keep it in top condition. You can watch a handy video on how to use this amazing bike saving tool.Replace your chain as soon when it reaches 0.75% wear. If you wait till the wear increases to 1% you will likely have to change your cassette and your chain rings.

Check you chain for wear on a regular basis, change it at 0.75% to avoid excessive ware to the rest of the drive train. Depending on how you ride and how much you ride you could get though a couple of chains in a year but its better to change the chain when needed and then you wont have to change the more expensive part of the drive train.