The cost of chainrings

Deals can work out that way.
If there are no deals on I look at Stronglight rings.

Its just outer chainrings that are monstrously expensive, you can get inners for £12 or so. Unfortunately inners very rarely wear out!

That's primarily becauuse Shimano 4 bolt 110 mm chainsets have fancy shaping, machining & inbuilt bolts on outer rings, so not cheap or easy to make - and there is a dearth of decent aftermarket alternatives. Even Stronglight 4 bolts are £50 at Spa.
Its difficult to compare a chainset at £75 vs a chainring at £50 because as under typical web pricing chainrings are sold at or near RRP but the chainset is sold at 50% or less.
Chainsets are considered an upgrade so tends to be a competitive market.

I bought myself a set of compact rings for £30 a year ago by buying a secondhand outer and a new inner, if I couldn't get a second hand outer I would just have got a new chainset.

There no 4 arm flat rings. Miche make alternatives too. This pricing structure is wasteful though in terms of resources and creates unessary poltution.

Campag have the same problems but there rings rarely wear out. Riding bikes should be environmentally sound sadly it isn't.

alanyu said:

R7000 chainrings are not compatible with 5800 crank. The shape is slightly different.
If you don't mind some hand work then you can make it campatible.

You sure about that? I thought it was the other way round (5800 rings not compatible with r7000)?

Certainly on a superficial basis the r7000 chainrings seem to have a cut out on one of the arms, which shouldn't stop them being used on 5800 cranks but would presumably stop the reverse.

Personally I opted out of all this nonsense by getting some power cranks with 5 bolt 110 bcd chainring mounts and get my chainrings dirt cheap from Spa.

If you avoid riding them until they are worn out you can normally sell for £40 or so as a used chainset. then buy a new one for £75 and save over the cost of replacing just the ring.

One advantage of 1x is that replacement chainrings for my Sram Apex 1x bike are only around £30.

nitrousoxide said:

joe_totale-2 said:

One advantage of 1x is that replacement chainrings for my Sram Apex 1x bike are only around £30.

But last time I looked, which was a while back, one negative was the ~£70+ replacement XD cassettes that have a 10T sprocket to try and compensate for the smaller 1x chainring.

Very true! They're still that price now.
You can get a 44 tooth Apex chainring so it's up to the kind of riding that someone does if they need a gear bigger than 44-11.

thecycleclinic said:

imposter2.0 said:

thecycleclinic said:

There no 4 arm flat rings.

Apart from those made by Miche and TA..??

The miche ring for shimano 4 arm are not flat. They look like the shimano rings. Same with ta the last time I looked. Maybe we have two different idea of what flat is.

Well I'm just going by the dictionary definition. Both rings are indeed flat, but with the bolt covers fitted, they look similar to the OEM shimano rings. Which is kind of the point. The Miche and TA rings are flat and supplied with bolt covers/fairings.