How often should you clean your chain

On a road bike how often should I clean my chain ?

"Tazza" == Tazza writes:

Tazza On a road bike how often should I clean my chain ?

Probably a lot more often than I do.

Every second day, which is about every 100 Ks or so, I wipe down my
chain, oil it, let it soak for five minutes while I pump up my tires,
fill my water etc, and wipe it down again.

Seems to work for me although I'm probably the last person to ask about
*cough* cleaning *cough* a bike. The rest of the bike has largely been
untouched since the onset of winter.
--
Cheers
Euan

Tazza Wrote:
On a road bike how often should I clean my chain ?

Clean it when it gets dirty. If you never ride in the rain, you can g
a month (or longer, I've heard). If you ride in the rain, you wil
probably need to clean and relube every day (as I had to this week
)

Ritc

--
ritcho

Tazza Wrote:
On a road bike how often should I clean my chain ?

It depends on how much you ride, the environmental conditions you rid
in, they type of lube you use and to some degree the age of the chain.

Here in Santa Cruz, the conditions can get pretty wet and dirty durin
the winter and dusty during the summer. There is also quite a bit o
salt water in the air. Meaning, chain and bike get cleaned at leas
once a week.

On the lube front, I was a big fan of White Lightning till I discovere
ProLink. Then, about two months ago, I found Purple Extreme. I ride a
least twice further on Purple Extreme than with ProLink (usually abou
200-250 miles on one application).

Hope this helps

--
kammer

On Sat, 06 Nov 2004 05:03:22 +1000, Tazza wrote:

On a road bike how often should I clean my chain ?

Depends.

On my commuter, which only rides the bitumen to the
train station, and then Central to the Sydney CBD,
it almost never needs cleaning.

On the weekend bike (aka touring bike) it tends to
get a bit more crud from riding on sections of dirt
road, grass on the side of bike-paths, etc.

If you rub your finger along it, and it comes off
black and greasy, clean it.

-kt

--
Kingsley Turner,
(mailto: )
http://MadDogsBreakfast.com/ABFAQ - news:aus.bicycle Frequenly Asked Questions

wrote

Every second day, which is about every 100 Ks or so, I wipe down my
chain, oil it, let it soak for five minutes while I pump up my tires,
fill my water etc, and wipe it down again.

Every second day, where on earth do you find time to do this!!!! You don't
have young children do you?

Bjay

"bjay" wrote
wrote
Every second day, which is about every 100 Ks or so, I wipe down my
chain, oil it, let it soak for five minutes while I pump up my tires,
fill my water etc, and wipe it down again.

Every second day, where on earth do you find time to do this!!!! You
don't
have young children do you?

Must be a typo.. surely he means "every second year"? ;-)

hippy

Every second day, which is about every 100 Ks or so, I wipe down my
chain, oil it, let it soak for five minutes while I pump up my tires,
fill my water etc, and wipe it down again.

Every second day, where on earth do you find time to do this!!!! You
don't
have young children do you?

Must be a typo.. surely he means "every second year"? ;-)

hippy

Ahh yes, that would make more sense. . . . . . he doesn't ride very far in a
year does he? :-)

bjay

when I hear my chain while I pedal along, i lube.
but I can never get the right amount to put on. I use some squeez
bottle silicon lube & when it goes on it's clear. The next day (afte
the commute to/from) it icky black & gunky, so I run the chain throug
an old T-shirt or sock to clean it back a few revolutions

--
Marx SS

"bjay" == bjay writes:

bjay wrote

Every second day, which is about every 100 Ks or so, I wipe down
my chain, oil it, let it soak for five minutes while I pump up my
tires, fill my water etc, and wipe it down again.

bjay Every second day, where on earth do you find time to do
bjay this!!!! You don't have young children do you?

Well there's ``cleaning'' and there's ``cleaning''.

By cleaning I mean wiping off all the crud picked up in the last few
days, lubing liberally, leaving to soak for five minutes, then wiping
off all the excess. Takes about ten minutes.

Taking chain off, soaking in paraffin etc; well I've yet to do that. My
chain feels pretty silky smooth so I'm not too worried.

Hope that clears things up :-)
--
Cheers
Euan