[Mike1jw]

I was told by a bike shop mechanic that a road bike chain should be relaced about every 5000 miles. Is that true?

The reason I ask is, I'm in the market for a new road bike and dont know if want to spend my life maintaining it.

I have a 20+ year old Giant Sedona mountain bike and have never even cleaned the chain. Never did anything to the bike, and it's still doing the job. A little tired, but it still rolls. I think if I cleaned it now, it would break.

Mike

[Industry_Hack]

How many miles on that Sedona? And how smoothly does it shift?

[hophead]

Chain wear depends on more factors than mileage. Chains are replaced as needed. You will probably get more miles out of a road bike chain than a mtn bike chain. I replace the chains on my singlespeed mtn bikes every year. I don't get anywhere near 5000 miles out of those chains.

Chain replacement is basic maintainence and bikes do require periodic maintainence. In addition to the chain, the cassette and chainrings should be replace at the same time since they all wear together.

The old stuff was more forgiving because the chains were bigger and bikes 20 years ago had fewer gears, but even that stuff needs to be replaced eventually.

[Industry_Hack]

Oh yeah. I never broke an eight speed chain, but did break a nine. Skinny little ten speed chains would fear me.

[Mike1jw]

I could only guess how many miles, but I can say this, I had the original tires on the bike until recently. The front tire was in great shape but the rear was bald in the center (they were knobbie tires). Most of my riding was done on flat dirt paths. I started to do some 25 mile rides on the road (maybe 400 mi. total) when I got a flat in the rear. I've since changed to 26 X 1.5 road tires. I'm really enjoying the road so that's why I in the market for a comfortable road bike.

As far as the shifting goes, up until yesterday it was great. I hardly used the front derailer using only the largest of the three spockets, and the rear derailer worked fine. However, yesterday I put on my first pair of clipless pedals (Speedplay Fogs) and it seemed that with the more aggressive pedaling I started to hear noises in the front derailer. So I decided to shift though the front gears a bit and it was a little sloppy. I one point it wasnt going up, but I corrected it buy turning the adjustment screw on the cable.

I guess I'll try to clean it up, adjust it, and relube it (I think I can handle that) and we'll see what happens. I'm sure the whole bike is tired though since I have not maintained at all, all these years.

[fatandslow]

Originally Posted by Mike1jw

I was told by a bike shop mechanic that a road bike chain should be relaced about every 5000 miles. Is that true?

The reason I ask is, I'm in the market for a new road bike and dont know if want to spend my life maintaining it.

I have a 20+ year old Giant Sedona mountain bike and have never even cleaned the chain. Never did anything to the bike, and it's still doing the job. A little tired, but it still rolls. I think if I cleaned it now, it would break.

Mike

The mileage you get out of a chain is directly proportional to how often you clean and lube it.

[chh55]

Use a chain cleaning device and an ecological friendly degreasing fluid and keep the chain well lubed you'll get at least 2 seasons out of it. Changing a chain is no biggie, takes a few minutes.
To the guy that thinks 10sp chains are skinny and therefore weak... the exact opposite is the case! The wider the link, the longer the pins, therefore the chance for the pin flexing is greater in an 8sp than a 10sp.