Conference noted::bicycle

    Do a DIR/TITLE="CHAIN" and you'll find one or two topics where this has
    been discussed. I seem to remember one opinion put forward quite
    vehemently was that you shouldn't clean your ATB chain, just keep
    oiling it with Tri-flo or similar. 
    
    If you're serious about cleaning it, you should remove it, soak it in
    white spirit or something like that, then use a toothbrush to scrub off
    the dirt. It will need to be oiled carefully after that, perhaps in
    boiling petrol (gasoline) as Reg famously suggested. 
    
    I've used LPS3, which is one of these "dry" lubricants, but find that
    it washes off very easily in wet conditions. Tri-flo may have more
    resistance to wetness, but leaves your chain gungy. 
    
    
    Rod

    How often and thorough you clean a chain will be in direct proportion
    to how much life you want to get out of it.
    
    Simply adding more lubricant is giant no-no. All you do is continue
    to add a base of gunk for more stuff to cling to.
    
    As recommended .1 to really clean it take it off and soak. A real
    killer is laquer thinner. This stiff is mean and evaporates well.
    However, Vetta makes an outstanding chain cleaner (approx. $20.00)
    for those "in-between - taking it off and really cleaning it" times.
    
    You'll find that there are as many opinions about which cleaner
    and lubricant to use as there are people out there who own a
    bicycle.  Through experience you'll settle in on something. In
    the meantime, getting started is the starting point.
    
    Chip

Clean the chain, clean the gears, clean everything...

I tried the "add more lube" trick, all it did was grind away the teeth
on the chain wheels.  I had to replace all three after less than one season,
plus the chain and the freewheel.

Now I wash my bike off with a hose after a ride (in the dirt), taking care to
hit the entire drive train from all sides with a direct stream with as much 
pressue as I can.  Then I go after the chain with a Vetta chain cleaner.  
I have not felt moved to "really clean" the chain as yet but I'm ready.

My new drive train still looks real good.  I rebuilt it all late last summer
and rode till November.  Been out a few times so far this year.

Water cleans out the grit from the brakes too..

RE (.3)

After reading all of the notes on "chains", I am more confused than ever.
One person suggests "adding more lube", and the bike shop warned against
EVER spraying a bike with water.  I just don't like the sound of a sandy chain.
Maybe the Vetta or Park liquid chain cleaners are the way to go - then douse 
the chain with tri-flow afterword.  I plan to ride to work and do weekend 
bashing, but for extensive on-road use I don't want to hear the sickening sound.

Also, my chain has little flares in the side plates - does that mean it is a 
(dreaded) Uniglide?

After 1 ride with my new mtn. bike, I noticed that 4 teeth of the (Suntour
XCM 4050) chainrings were nicked - the aluminum on the teeth was gouged and 
peeled back (not the whole tooth).  I gently filed off the protruding metal, 
figuring it certainly wasn't doing any good.  What caused this?  - Was it 
stones caught in the chain, or chain slap?  I did some rather adventuresome 
riding for the first time out, but I didn't abuse the bike.  Looks to me like 
buying chainrings every few years could be in order.  The aluminum seems so 
soft! 

What about the "Rock-Ring" sold by Nashbar? - a chainring guard that keeps
rocks you pedal over from trashing your chainwheel - drawback - it is $34


Thanks for your help, all,


END_OF_QUESTIONS


******************************************************************************

>>>I tried the "add more lube" trick, all it did was grind away the teeth
>>>on the chain wheels.  I had to replace all three after less than one season,
>>>plus the chain and the freewheel.

>>>Now I wash my bike off with a hose after a ride (in the dirt), taking care to
>>>hit the entire drive train from all sides with a direct stream with as much 
>>>pressue as I can.  

Then I go after the chain with a Vetta chain cleaner.  
I have not felt moved to "really clean" the chain as yet but I'm ready.

    I have owned my ATB for 5 years now and have been hosing it down
    on a regular basis. The only damage that I can tell has happened
    (if you call this damage) is a few of the allen screws are a little
    rusty inside the indentation. Logic will tell you that ATB's are
    made for blasting through sreams, winter jaunts and mud boggin'!
    That's why the bearings are sealed. I just take an old towel and
    dry it down after the hose job.
    
    Freewheels... tell me about it. I have at least 5-6 teeth gone,
    snapped off and haven't even repalaced them, they work fine. I
    do take care of the bike, don't get me wrong. But I do use it
    for the purpose it was intended, wood thrashing. 
    
    Stay with the chain suggestion, like the rest of the bike, keep
    it clean and maintained. You won't have any problems due to water.
    
    Have fun and don't be afraid to assualt the thing.
    
    Chip

    The previous note is correct...if you ride hard, you'll lose
    freewheel teeth. no sense worrying about wearing them out if you
    knock them off. BE SURE to dry the chain off and lube it after
    you hose it down. I used to clean mine often, but always had
    a problem with tight links (which are FAR more annoying than a 
    gritty  sound. ). By the way...I noticed that you dont really 
    have that gritty sound if you dont have that plastic plate between
    the freewheel and the spokes. I dont have the plastic plate on
    my bike, and i dont really know what it is for. If someone in 
    theses files doesn't have a good reason for having it, you might
    want to take it off. 
    

    
>>>    Have fun and don't be afraid to assualt the thing.
   

That's what I wanted to hear!  I have this great (well, not great) moral
problem with new bikes that go "grind, grind" when you use them.... would you
tell your friends with four-wheel drive vehicles that "REAL men get sand in the
differentials?"

But anyway, that is the good part about bikes - if you damage something or
wear it out, you can replace it yourself, and it won't cost much.

So, perhaps I'll stop worrying so much, and enjoy the bike more.  (Clean chains,
we don' need no stinking clean chains??!!!??)

Steve

    
    I've owned my bike for a year now, and do alot of off-roading.
    
    I hate the sound of dirt in my gears, but if thats where you ride,
    thats the consequence.
    
    I often clean mine, after most mud bogs......
    
    Just go to your bike shop, by a chain break tool (about 5 bucks)
    take the chain off and soak it in a coffee can of gas or kerosene
    for about an hour, take it out scrub all sides with a toothbrush
    rinse in the gas again, and your done!
    
    Reinstall it on your bike, and lube it up, I use Phil Woods
    Tenacious oil which works real well.
    
    Now your all set to go and get muddy again.
    
    I personally dont think there is a need to spend twenty bucks on
    some fancy cleaner, when a coffee can of gas costs about 15 cents

    That plastic plate between the freewheel and the spokes is to keep
    the chain from going into and damaging the spokes if the limit stop
    on the rear derailleur is not adjusted correctly. It's a rather
    difficult and expensive repair if you end up breaking spokes or
    screwing up the hub flange. 
    
    I've found a good way to clean and relube the chain is to soak it
    in mineral spirits, then brush it off well with a parts cleaning
    brush or toothbrush. Then dump the dirty solvent and put in some
    clean solvent and repeat until the solvent comes out reasonably
    clean - i.e., a little milky. This usually takes about one or two
    clean batches of solvent.
    
    Then allow the solvent to evaporate or blow dry with compressed
    air until you can't smell it on the chain any more. This is important
    since you don't want any solvent remaining to dissolve the lube
    you put in.
    
    Then I hang the chain on a nail on a telephone pole (any expendable
    flat vertical surface is OK) and spray the
    lube (any of the Teflon-based chain lubes are OK. However I don't
    recommend Phil Wood Tenacious Oil because it's too sticky.) up and down the
    length of the chain a couple of times. Remove the chain from the
    nail and hold
    it by the ends and work the chain up and down several times to
    distribute the lube thru the bushings better. Then hang it up again
    and allow to drain for a 1/2 hr or so.
    
    Before you put it back on the bike take a rag and wipe the excess
    lube off the outside of the chain. After you put it on the bike,
    do this again by turning the pedals backward and holding the rag
    around the chain. This removes the excess lube on the exterior of
    the links and reduces the dirt-gathering tendencies.
         
    I've found this to be a very satisfactory method of cleaning and
    lubing chains. Ah, a couple more things: a cheap 2 quart sauce pan works
    very well as a solvent/cleaning container and doubling the chain
    and rolling it up into a flat coil makes it very easy to handle
    while cleaning it. It just fits into the bottom of the pan also.
                                                     

    	I don't ride my mountain bike often enough to comment in
    detail, but from what I've read so far it sounds like you might
    want to consider waxing the chain rather than using either oil
    or silicone based lubricants.  Buy an extra chain and a chain
    break tool and wax the chain that's off the bike or buy several
    chains and wax them up together and just keep changing chains
    until you run out.  
    
    						Jerry

Re: back a few -

Don't use gas for a solvent! There's a real tragic story mentioned in 
the WOODWORKING_AND_TOOLS notes (on DELNI::) where a DECcie's son and 
another boy were (I think) cleaning bike chains or cycle parts in 
gasoline and a spark 20 ft. away ignited the gas. The son had only 
minor(?) burns, but the other boy died after several months in the 
hospital and many operations. It's not worth it to use gas when there 
are much less volatile solvents available. If you don't think it can 
happen to you, at least check out the note in w & t, I think it had 
"ACCIDENTS" in the title of the base note....
                                                  ken

RE: .10

    There are a couple of companies that make spray on wax for chains.
    I think one of them is "Clean Lube" which comes in a yellow can. I
    used it once and found it worked well. Otherwise, I wax my chains,
    and that's worked well too.

--David

    Kerosene is recommended. It's less volatile and has some lubricant
    in it to stop any immediate corrosion from setting in.

    
    Be careful with these suggestions on gasoline and kerosene. If you're
    cleaning your chain on your bike these liquids can have less than
    a positive effect on rubber/nylon bushings and seals. They'll eat
    'em up. 
    
    Try and stay with recommended (and manufactured for the job) cleaners.
    
    Did you know that kerosene is jet fuel. Maybe there is something
    to the suggestion?
    
    Chip

    If you want to avoid the gasoline/kerosene issues, use one of the auto
    engine cleaners like Gunk. This stuff will ruin paint and who knows
    what else, so use it only on a chain removed from the bike. You will
    have to wash the chain in water to rmove this stuff, so be sure and
    soak it in a couple of changes of oil or similar afterwards, a la 
    reply .9. 

    The moral of this story comes first:
    
    KEEP YOUR CHAIN CLEAN AND OILED!
    
    After 1500 miles of 80% offroad riding my beloved CR-7 developed chain
    noise.  Couldn't be oiled, adjusted or cussed away.  Examining the
    noisy member and *shock*...its the infamous UNISTREATCH (uniglide-UG).
    
    Local bike shop supplied a trick new SEDIS and the change is made.
      
    RATS..don't quite shift right...hmmmmm...slips badly in granny and
    mid ring....the chain jumps off the 12 tooth cog in any ring.
    
    An examination showed 50% of the chainring teeth to be ground away, all
    cogs on the cluster have extream wear on the "pulling" side of the
    teeth.  UG pins had 1.5mm wear marks when removed.
    
    Verdict, lax about cleaning and oiling the chain allowed it to become
    an effective rasp which chewed everything it ran on.  Lack of oil on
    the old UG let it wear to extreams (not helping anything).
    
    Penalty, 	Onza 24t  = $19.00	SEDIS chain  = $11.00
    		Onza 34t  = $25.00	14-32 cluster= $28.50
    		Sakae 46t = $20.00	Aluminum
    					jockey wheels= $15.00
    
    (See moral above)

    Hmm... all this talk about worn chainring teeth is making me nervous.
    I've had my MB-2 offroad only 3 times, total of about 6 hours.  The
    first two times it didn't get too dirty, but I had it out for 3 hours
    on Saturday.  It got totally covered in mud and gunk, and by the end
    of the ride the chain started skipping.

    We let the bikes dry out overnight, then Sunday we went at them with
    wisk brooms and tooth brushes.  My chain was so gunked up it wouldn't
    even *bend*, so I took that off.  The jockey pulleys were completely
    encrusted.  When I started cleaning the chainrings I almost had a
    heart attack when I noticed that about a dozen teeth were seriously
    worn down!  Checking it out a little more closely, the worn teeth
    were in groups of 4 or so, and the worn-ness was graduated from one
    tooth to the next.  A few were worn a LOT, a few were worn a little,
    and the ones in between were somewhere in the middle.  Oh yeah, this
    seemed to be only on the middle chainring.  I tended to ride in the
    small and the middle.

    Trying to be optimistic, my husband suggested that maybe the teeth
    were SUPPOSED to be that way, for shifting purposes.  Could this
    possibly be true?  The bike's almost all Deore XT, and is hyperglide,
    I believe.  The chainrings are Shimano SG.  Once I clean the chain
    I'll be able to tell you what kind it is. %^)


    Sue

    Areyou sure they didn't come that way, like "superglide" or something?
    
    ed

    
    Yes, Superglide (SG) chainrings have some teeth smaller than others
    to aid in shifting (marketing strikes again).  There's nothing wrong
    with your bike.
    
    After a real muddy ride I usually just hose my bike down, let it dry
    and re-lube the chain and derailures.  Seems to work pretty good, and
    it's certainly easier than the toothbrush method.
    
    Stew
    

    Again it's a case of "[paying] more for less."
    
    ed

    Whew!  I feel much better now.  Thanks for the enlightenment.