The Best Way to Clean Your Chain

[pk]

Sheldon Brown has some great tips on cleaning your chain. Following his advice will make you faster and keep your drivetrain in tip top shape.

http://www.sheldonbrown.com:80/chainclean.html

pk

[mdc]

Following his advice I would never have time to ride my bike becuase I would be disassembling and reassembling chains all week!

[Plywood]

Dude, i sent like 2 hour lastnight trying to get my chain off... i never did :eek:. It was one of thoughs ones with the magic link.

[mdc]

When the power links get grungy they can be a pain to get off. Try lubing and cleaning that one link really well then try to pop it off- sometimes that can help.

[Slider]

If you use some needle nose pliers (or a friends hands on the trail) to push the side plates together, it gets lots easier to remove those links. The plate has to slide UNDER the pin, not straight toward it. Pushing the plates together and THEN pushing the rollers together makes it a simple process.

Cleaning helps, but it is more about the right pressure in the right direction.

As for Sheldon, he clearly knows what date it was when he posted that. Next year, freehub body daily maintenance, or "how many bearings are in that thing?"

Slider

[Slappy]

:D

I use White Lightning and haven't had to clean a chain or deal with gunked up cogs since forever. Love that stuff!

[BigMac]

Couple of things.
1. this guy is a total FREAK!
2. He obviously never rides his bike. (cause the whole damn thing is in pieces that he cant locate or remember how to put back together).
3.PK, I wanna see you clean your chain this way.
a little bit of degreaser and water works fine for me.

[robdesigns]

I find it easier to remove the chain, swallow it with a shot of vodka, jump up and down, wait 6-12 hours and re-install.

I assume anyone with a serious response missed the joke.

Rob

[C.P.]

C'mon, anyone actually read the linked article far enough down to see the cleaning kit contents? and their pricing? Course, scroll down farther, and you'd see the date it was created...;)

[pk]

Bicycle chains may be efficient, but the future is string drive. I'm now converting all my bikes to string. No need to lube, and it's easy to carry some extra string on rides.

http://www.skyex.com/stringbike/bicaj.jpg

http://www.skyex.com/stringbike/bicaj6.jpg

http://www.skyex.com/stringbike/bicaj11.jpg

http://www.skyex.com/stringbike/

[AA]

I assume anyone with a serious response missed the joke.

Rob

awwww crap I just dissasembled EVERYTHING ;)

[CouchingTiger]

I don't get the joke. I've been doing it that way for ages and just assumed everyone else paid the same attention to detail when cleaning their bikes. I know PK spends countless hours cleaning and maintaining :)

-Couch

[hammerhead]

Tff!!

H.

[Aktion]

I used WL for about 10 years until last year when a shop convinced me to try something else. I never had a problem with WL but every shop (even though they sold WL) tried to get me to stop using it. I successfully ignored them all these years. The reason I switched was that I had just broken my chain. I used to break chains weekly but haven't done so in a few years. I attributed it to not applying WL after every ride. It just so happed that the latest chain break was also with a chain that was not freshly lubed. So I figured I would give this "miracle" lube a try. So far it seems like it works pretty well. Not as clean as with WL but the chain cleaner is pretty quick to use. And if I forget to lube the chain, it can go a few rides and it would still have sufficient lube.

I'm in the same boat.

I always bake a new chain before using WL though.

[Dino Sore]

Sheldon Brown has some great tips on cleaning your chain. Following his advice will make you faster and keep your drivetrain in tip top shape.

http://www.sheldonbrown.com:80/chainclean.html

pk

That's a riot. Of course, if you post to the rec.bicycles.tech newsgroup and ask for the best way to clean your chain, you'll get responses not too dissimilar from Sheldon's method.

Further reading for the gullible: http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2007/apr07/apr01newsspecial

[SteveC]

Sheldon's a friggin riot! He actually is a wealth of ideas and knowledge, but has a real sick sense of humor......
I like the link to 'Superleggero bearing balls'.....hey, it's free entertainment!
I'm sure he's chuckling right now, at all the responses......
BTW, that Park thing with some dollar-store citrus degreaser is the easiest way, rinse, wipe, lube with Lucas Oil Stabilizer or good old Phil's Tenacious.......
SC