Cassette Wear

mwooldridge

Ok, every year I burn through a chain and a cassette and after talking with a friend he suggest not waiting for a year, but to check wear on chain and when it was down to 0.75 then change chain and would not affect cassette and I could save costs. So six months in chain is looking pretty worn and so I swapped out this weekend. Result is now that chain is jumping on cassette indicating that cassette is worn too! I would of been ebtter just leaving it for a year as it turns out, or has anyone got more experience on this?

I am running 105 through (on gears at least) atm, can I get a better wearing cassette or should I just revert to an annual change of both at the same time (which is what I always understood to be best practice)?

Thanks for comments in advance.

Mike

rolf_f

Better off getting 3 chains and rotating them every 500 miles or so. By the time the rings and cassette are worn, so will the 3 chains. Therefore your cassette and rings last for 3 chains rather than one - everything wears down together.

Lots of cleaning helps too!

Incidentally 'a year' doesn't really mean much; how may miles do you cover, do you ride in crap weather etc is the info needed to work out if you are getting a poor mileage from your kit.

Incidentally, you might as well go back to the old cassette and chain for now (assuming that the chainrings are due replacement as well) - that pair will still work together so you might as well at least wear them from 0.75 to 1.

Moodyman

Rotating the chains is a good method to increase life of drivechain.

But I find it a hassle for the sake of a cassette and two chains per year.

Personally I just replace the first chain after it's beginning to stretch. I use the 12 inch ruler method as told by Sheldon Brown:

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/chains.html

It looks as if you switched your chain too late.

rolf_f

Moodyman wrote:

Rotating the chains is a good method to increase life of drivechain.

But I find it a hassle for the sake of a cassette and two chains per year.

What hassle though? If the chain is off for a deep clean, it takes no more time to put a different one on rather than the same one. The only hassle is if you don't rotate, you have to pull out the cassette more frequently. And you'll have all that extra chain shortening to do as you'll be needing chains more frequently. Now that's hassle!