New chain slipping

kingofthetailwind

I bought my Felt Z95 in January. 9 speed Sora groupset, apart from the cassette and chain. The Sunrace cassette was garbage so I changed it for a SRAM one straight away.

Everything working fine until the last few days when I started hearing a creak under load. I was leaving it in for a service on Saturday anyway, so asked them to try and find the source of the creaking. Turns out the chain was badly worn - after only about 750 miles or so.

So I replaced the chain with a SRAM one. Yesterday the chain was slipping under heavy load, particuarly on the inner ring. There's also a kind of ticking noise. I realise that this is because it's a new chain on a used cassette, but given that the cassette is fairly new I didn't think it would be much of an issue.

Will this bed in after a few more miles, or should I just get another new SRAM cassette before I wreck the new chain? Only £13 in CRC so no biggie.

Note to self - buy a chain wear tool.

keef66

You could give it a couple of weeks to see if it settles down, but if the new chain is skipping on the old cassette it suggests the cassette's worn too.

For the sake of £13 I'd probably do it anyway.

GrantTaylor

I had the same issue with a new chain. It turned out it was the cassette (more specifically one sprocket) had worn. It takes quite a while to wear a cassette out, I usually go through at least 4-5 chains to every one cassette. I cannot empasise how imporatant it is to keep everything clean, this will massivly increase the service life of the entire drive train. In this wet/salty weather I am cleaning the whole drive train at least 3 times a week. I ride six days a week. This may sound excesive, and to be frank it is a ball ache after the a cold, wet, dark commute home but I find it is paying dividends in the longevity of components. The removal of that grey 'paste' from the wheel rims after a wet ride has seen my Mavic Ksyriums enter their 10th year of winter use.

I take it from your post that the creaking was the chain in the end? Not un heard of but usually a creak can be attributed to a worn bottom bracket.

kingofthetailwind

Yeah the creaking has stopped, so it must have been the chain.

I'll maybe give it one more long ride and see if it beds in before changing the cassette. Seems a waste to bin it after less than 1000 miles.

My bike is used six days a week as well. I can't claim to give the drive train a full clean three times a week though! One full clean and one quick clean usually.

Thanks for the replies.

keef66

That's more cleaning than mine gets, but I do check frequently for chain wear, and replace before it gets to 0.75% worn. Still on the original 105 cassette after 4 chains / 6000 miles or so.