drive train usage on trainer

[digiguy]

Okay this summer I let my cassette and chain go too long and long story short ended up with a broken rear derailer and broken rear wheel. After a pretty penny getting it fixed I am gun shy. Now that I have put my road bike on the trainer I am wondering how much wear and tear occurs on the drive train in a Kurt Kinetic and if I should put some other equipment on to save my summer wheel, cassette and chain?

Thanks in advance.

 

[daveryanwyoming]

Riding your trainer will wear your cogs and chain out roughly as fast as outside on the road. Perhaps a bit less due to less road grime, but for similar riding power and similar time on the bike you'll get similar wear. The good news is that folks generally don't ride nearly as much indoors as they do outdoors so trainer time should be less.

You shouldn't really have trouble with cassettes wearing out fast indoors or out, but that assumes you replace your chains when they need replacing. Unfortunately chains are consumables and none too cheap for 10 speed drive trains but that's part of riding a bike whether outside or on the trainer.

-Dave

 

[alfeng]

Okay this summer I let my cassette and chain go too long and long story short ended up with a broken rear derailer and broken rear wheel. After a pretty penny getting it fixed I am gun shy. Now that I have put my road bike on the trainer I am wondering how much wear and tear occurs on the drive train in a Kurt Kinetic and if I should put some other equipment on to save my summer wheel, cassette and chain?

Okay, I'm an inquiring mind -- just what do you mean when you say you broke your "rear derailleur and ... rear wheel"?

 

[digiguy]

Thanks Dave. That is what I thought. I learned a valuable lesson in my incident. Monitor your chain wear!

alfeng - What happened is I went for a ride and my chain and cassette were used up. The chain started to skip and I believe the quick link that was in the chain got caught up in the rear derailleur snapping it off at the drop out. It then got caught in the spokes of the rear wheel causing a couple of the spokes to be damaged and the rim ended up cracking at a couple of the nipple holes. I ended up buying a new rear wheel, rear derailleur, new chain, new cassette.

If I had maintained my drive train I probably would not have had this problem. Sad thing is I had just taken the bike to a LBS maintenance class, taken it apart, cleaned it and put it back together again. I don't think it was operating quite right but went on a ride anyways.

 

[swampy1970]

Don't forget that Shimano.com is a great resouce for setting up their equipment.

Tech Tips:
Tech Tips

They also have all the required info for all products - whether you want the complete instructions of how to put the stuff on the bike. Just go to the products section and go to the specific part that you're looking for. Along with the product description and the pretty pictures are the links for all that you'll ever need to know.

http://bike.shimano.com/media/techd...01/SI-5X90A-001-ENG_v1_m56577569830671285.pdf

...or the "destructions" on how everything looks when it's all in bits. If you're the type that likes to do their own work and sometimes forget to put everything on the bench in order these could be useful when trying to get everything back together again...

http://bike.shimano.com/media/techd.../RD/EV-RD-6700-2919_v1_m56577569830672024.pdf

I just used the Ultegra rear mech - but there's stuff for everything!

 

[64Paramount]

Thanks Swampy, I hadn't looked at the Shimano links before. Good stuff!