CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years old!
Well done to ALL posters
It soon became useful and entertaining. There are regular posters, people who add useful info occasionally and plenty more who drop by to watch. That's fine. If you want to add news/comments it's easy to register and become a member.
RULES No personal insults. No swearing.
Just finished cleaning the roady, having finally got the replacement free hub from Trek (3 months!) I've got a trial bottle of this for it I'll let you know how it copes with an Edinburgh commute.
So far the most difficult job has been cleaning the (newish) chain two baths of white spirit to get it clean enough to put the wax on. Don't what to see what it will take to get the mtb chain clean given its current status of two parts mud to one oil.
don't forget to note what sort of tattoo it leaves on your right calf!
sounds cool...
do i really have to clean my chain every 50 miles???
do i really have to clean my chain every 50 miles???
Depends what you've been riding through 50 miles of!
You clean it when it needs cleaned I guess. I probably clean mine once every month in the summer, more often in winter and commute about 60 miles a week entirely on roads. The general accumulation of filth, oil, dirt, grit, tyre rubber and water will makes itself known through the audible protestation of the jockey wheels on your dérailleur!
humm, that would explain the cubic foot of dirt i took off the drive train last night (and very satisfying it was too!) but makes me wonder about when i used to commute 150 miles a week (in winter) and would clean+oil my chain once a season...
Did need a replacement drivetrain after a couple of years now that i think about it *embarrassed*
So if I'm gonna tour europe the summer i should take a chain bath?
probably not! if it's clean and lubed before you go it should be fine - Europe in the summer should be more forgiving than Scotland in the winter! If you're going for a really long time and it becomes an issue, you can always improvise :)
Well after a couple of weeks, I've not had to top up the wax after the initial two applications and that is after at least two very sodden rides. The chain still looks clean some grains of dirt were forming but i think the rain dislodged them yesterday. So i've not had to clean it over the last couple of weeks.
I ran my finger over the chain and it came away quite mucky but I rubbed my finger and thumb together and the muck just rubbed off which if nothing else is a huge improvement over the normal lubes which normally take swarfega or judicious applications of the nail brush to clean off.
Tattoo is very disappointing, it just rubbed off....
So drive train still silent, chain still waxy to the touch and the dirt comes off with out too much argument.
nice!!!
Well i think i've found the limits of this stuff. After getting the big bottle and liberally applying it to the mtb the chain has gotten pretty rusty, its just surface rust on the plates and mostly wipes off but its untidy and it'll probably wear the chain quicker.
The rollers were still pretty clean, waxy and the chain rolled quietly enough but i didn't like the nice rusty colour. Its not done this on the road bike but i think its a much better chain with some plating on the plates.
So for the mtb at least i've gone back to the gloopy finish line wet lube, it looks and smells like engine oil but it coats the plates and every thing so it should stop the chain etc getting to corroded till i can replace it in the spring.
Steveo - I followed your link and they sent me a sample which was fine until several nights of rain back before the snow and the road bike chain went rusty [decent quality shimano chain]. It does rub off as is on surface as you point out but I think I will be heading back to wet lube if the snow ever clears
Yeah i've noticed that with the Shimano chain on the mtb but the SRAM chain has been fine for the last couple of months with no sign of rust. I think the SRAM chains are nickel coated or some thing because i've not treated the SRAM chain any better than the Shimano one.
largely superficial the rust but the squirt re-application presumably involves getting it very clean and dry again - which is trickier in winter, maybe I will buy myself a hair dryer for christmas for drying the chain?
I've not cleaned the roady chain since i put the squirt on.
I've found you don't need to clean the chain just give it a brush, with it not being solvent based i believe it doesn't thin the crud and take it into the pins so you can just add more solution onto of the old stuff.
where does the crud go then? non-stick? I have a bit left in the sample will splash it on for next week's thaw
The marketing speak suggests that it balls up the crud so it falls off, normally i give it a brush and top up with more wax. Its fairly clean after a couple of months, it looks nearly rusty in the pictures but it doesn't look that bad irl.
IMG_2845 by steveo_mcg, on Flickr
IMG_2846 by steveo_mcg, on Flickr
That is what my chain looked like too. I gave it a rub with a duster. THere was no crud, mystery of the crud? If there was crud, brushing it would remove most but also brush some crud further in to the chain, same with what I did with the cloth [old pair of pants]
I used to use a wet wax lube - Big bottle bargain from The Bike Chain, but it seemed good at picking up the crud - their badly spelt marketing suggesting it turned crud into lube. The stuff was blue - Rock and Roll Chain Reaction - had to walk about with it in your pocket for ages in the winter. At the bottom of the big bottle there was a marble. I liked that. TBC then threw in gratis some eco-lube when I bought a very good front wheel at a good price, which was nice, then Squirt Free Trial then the Heriot Watt research suggesting all lubes 1% more efficient than water. That is about all the lube data I can squeeeze out of this tube
You must log in to post.
Cycling in Edinburgh Flickr group
Video embedded using Easy Video Embed plugin
posts