Re: What's the best chain cleaner & degreaser?

Walter Mitty

"Shaun Rimmer" <shaun@newtronic.co.uk> brightened my day with his
incisive wit when in news:c4h451$2glddm$1@ID-170198.news.uni-berlin.de
he conjectured that:

>
> "Werehatrack" <rault00@earthWEEDSlink.net> wrote in message
> news59m601vlmpubb6unrckdpfubr41mgda67@4ax.com...
>> On Wed, 31 Mar 2004 10:47:29 +0100, "Daniel Kelly \(AKA Jack\)"
>> <d.kellyNOSPAM@NOSPAM.ucl.ac.uk> may have said:
>>
>> >Hi,
>> >
>> >Please may I ask your advice? What's the best device for cleaning
> mountain
>> >bike chains? I'd like it to be cheap and to work without me having
>> >to
> take
>> >the chain off.
>>
>> This has been discussed endlessly. May I suggest that a few hours
>> spent Googling the prior threads should either leave you completely
>> confused or extremely well-informed, or somewhere between those two?
>> (The result will be little different from Yet Another chain cleaning
>> thread, in that regard.)
>
> Indeed.
>
> However, I would like to say, cleaning a chain actually does it harm!
> It gets oil away from the load surfaces, and crap in! You should just
> keep re-oiling it, lasts 2 to 5 times longer that way. Excess crud
> removes itself via the critical mass method, same way and MTB cleans
> itself.
>

What a load of rubbish. I cycle in a northern european city which has
grit, salt and other comtaminants everywhere. Regular cleaning of my
chain extends its lifespan, makes for quiter riding and improves
shifting.

So long as you lubricate the chain immediately after cleaning there is no
harm done at all.

TBGibb

In article <Xns94C18C8E33C7waltermitty@127.0.0.1>, Walter Mitty
<mitticus.remo.veme@yahoo.co.uk> writes:

>What a load of rubbish. I cycle in a northern european city which has
>grit, salt and other comtaminants everywhere. Regular cleaning of my
>chain extends its lifespan, makes for quiter riding and improves
>shifting.
>
>So long as you lubricate the chain immediately after cleaning there is no
>harm done at all.

Try breaking your next new chain into two halves and rejoining them with an
SRAM Power Link. Then compare the two cleaning methods under discussion.

I did it in a dry climate. The simple "wipe it down and re-lube it" method was
easily the best method (the chain lasted longer). I would be very interested
in seeing the results that you get in a wet, gritty climate. It's possible
that you'd get better results soaking and thrashing the chain in solvent. But
I thought I'd get better results that way too . . .

Tom Gibb <TBGibb@aol.com>