Bike Chains, Part 1 – Luctor et Emergo

Preliminary
1. The History of the Bicycle
2. Knowledge about Bicycles
3. Chains

Preliminary

Revised

This is Part 1 of a series of 9 posts organized as a single article. There are 8 parts, individually published as posts on this blog, and a table of contents of the series in the 9th post. The series is organized into sections, numbered for reference, in the series table of contents and in the table of contents for each post. In March 2024 I began to reorganize and revise the long article. The project took several months.

Scope

I am not an engineer or mechanic. I have done basic home maintenance on my bikes. Until 2021, I had not read any information resources about chain wear online, or in any cycling magazines or books. My knowledge of bike tech was out of date, and my knowledge of maintenance was low.

This post explains:

when and how I became interested in bicycle drive chains,
the limitations of internet search as a tool for understanding a subject,
the safety bicycle,
basics of the roller chain drive train.

Finding Chain Wear

In April 2021, I thought I had less than 2,000 Km on the KMC X11 (11 speed) chain on my Cannondale Topstone gravel bike since August 2019 ¹. I made changes to the drive train in 2021 during the Covid-19 lockdown:

Swapped the factory FSA crankset on the bike when I bought it in 2019, including the chain wheels (172.5 mm crank arms on the FSA crankset on a medium sized Topstone) for an FSA crankset with 165 mm crank arms, and
Had the Shimano rear cassette replaced with a SRAM cassette with some bigger cogwheels (“low gears”).

I had followed what I thought was normal practice in trying to clean the chain. I had been washing the chain every two or three weeks in a clamshell tool – a Park Tools CM-5.3 Cyclone chain cleaner – with a few ounces of Mountain Equipment Cooperative’s Bio-Cycle liquid cleaner. Immediately after the wash, I applied clean, (unused) drip lubes. I lubricated with brand name bicycle chain drip lube products: ProGold Pro-Link and Muc-Off’s retail “dry” lube product.

In April 2021, I still had problems: the chain did not respond to shifts, or skipped, or rubbed the front derailleur cage. I had thought the KMC X11 chain was a durable product. It is a comparatively good chain. I did not understand that bike and component manufacturers, and bike mechanics, regard chains as consumable. I had not known the industry standard for 11 speed chain elongation wear and chain replacement. I had a chain checker but I had not known how to use it or if it was reliable. In April 2021 my Park Tool CC-3.2 chain checker was reading that the chain was worn and should be replaced.

I located a SRAM PC 1130 chain and a supply of SRAM Powerlinks (SRAM proprietary master links). SRAM’s Canadian web site describes the PC 1130 chain as “an affordable, lightweight and precise option for all 11-speed groupsets” and the PC 1170 with these comments: “features more heavily chamfered outer plates for improved shifting and quieter running. The chrome hardened pin construction provides longer chain life.” SRAM and the store did not say anything about the steel used to make the chain, and did not claim that the model of chain was plated or treated with SRAM’s hard chromium steel.

I tried various lubrication products in 2021. I found by early 2022 that the SRAM PC 1130 chain was wearing fast too. SRAM made (and still makes) some high quality durable chains with the hard chromium treatment or plating. The SRAM PC1130 was a relatively inexpensive retail product, and not particularly durable.

Selling and Maintaining Bikes

Bikes have become more expensive and more complicated. Bikes are sold through bike shops. The bikes are built by a few “manufacturers” and sold through bike shops. The manufacturing of the components is done by many contractors. The modern manufacturer is a brand manager and a distributor. It may play a role in designing the bike and may control the manufacturing frames and some components. One of the modern manufacturer’s main risks is not getting paid. The modern manager manages that risk by demanding adequate security for orders. Another risk is not selling bikes. The modern manager manages that risk by marketing the brand and the model to the public (while actually wholesaling the bikes to bike shops).

Bike shops depend on manufacturers to publicize a bike model, and are subject to controls on pricing – subject to the competition laws (called anti-trust in the USA), in the countries where the bikes are offered for sale. Some brands have built or rented brand stores, or acquired and started to operate local bike stores. Bike stores depend on selling bikes for much of their income.

Bike shops charge customers for mechanics’ services and for repair parts. Bike shops, by the early 21st century, were setting rates and suggesting that customers bring bikes in for regular tune-ups. Customers familiar with the practices of automotive service industries are suspicious of advice about maintenance of bikes that seem to have been working fine for years. The amount of service provided in a regular tune-up may be minimal. It has become difficult for mechanics to get parts from bike and component firms, and mechanics may not be familiar with the right practices to repair some bikes and components.

Bike shops and mechanics are not necessarily supported by bike and component manufacturers. The brand managers do not set service schedules and do not enforce them, unless they provide warranty programs.

It is not possible to ignore return on investment, shareholder value, corporate governance, planned obsolescence, marketing, consumerism and other aspects of asset management and financial management practices by the managers of bicycle manufacturing firms. However, it not useful for me to use moral words like “avarice” in this article. Things that are not manufactured cannot be bought or used. Bikes, parts, accessories and other products are consumer products, built to standards of functionality, durability, cost and other economic factors. Bikes require the attention of mechanics and regular maintenance that most customers do not have the knowledge or experience to provide. In that context, I have wondered about:

What is “quality” in a bicycle chain?
What is a good lubricant?
How much knowledge does a user need about cleaning and maintenance?
What amount of time and effort should go into
- bike maintenance,
- drive train maintenance,
- chain lubrication, cleaning and maintenance?

1. The History of the Bicycle

Safety Bicycle

The wooden-framed draisines and “velocipedes” of the early 19th century, which lacked drive trains, were precursors of the safety bicycle. A rider sat on a wheeled frame, propelled by the rider’s pushing against the ground. When such vehicles was introduced to cities on the eastern coast of the USA, they were banned in New York City in 1819². Examples of these device:

the Laufmaschine designed by Karl von Drais, patented in Germany in 1818.
the pedestrian curricle patented in England by Denis Johnson.)

Metal bicycles, propelled by pedals attached by some mechanism to the hub of the driving wheel, also called velocipedes, were manufactured in France in the 1850s and ’60s. Most of the middle 19th century “Boneshaker” velocipedes were made of wrought iron. These did not, generally, have chain drives. Several American businesses were making metal velocipedes by the end of the 1860’s³. The high mount bicycles (e.g. the pennyfarthing) of the 1880s were powered with pedals connected to crankshaft arms converting linear force on the pedals to rotate a driving wheel, which converted rotational force to linear forward force on the bicycle.

The use of a drive chain to connect pedals revolving in one location to the driving wheel was introduced by Harry John Lawson in England in the 1870s. Most other features of the safety bicycle were present in John Kemp Starley’s Rover, which was introduced in England in 1886, and regarded as the first safety bicycle. The features of the Rover, and other innovations (pneumatic tires, roller chains) were copied by European and American manufacturers. The safety bicycle was developed in the United States and in Europe by inventors, mechanics and industrial manufacturers in late 19th century. It is the “original” bicycle. It was developed in spite of the fact that most roads were suited to horses and horse-drawn carriages, and few roads were paved. The safety bicycle was a product of industry of the late 19th century, made of steel tubes, steel components and rubber. The safety bicycle involves several elements:

two wheels, in line, each with hubs allowing the wheels to rotate in the direction the bike is moving, usually with a power wheel in the back and a steering wheel in the front;
a frame to hold the wheels, support the rider, and allow the rider to push the pedals down, to rotate a driving gearwheel – i.e. to connect a drive train. Safety bicycles mainly had steel frames. By 1890 hollow steel tubes were available;
a drive train – pedals pushed vertically by the rider revolving driving gears (chain wheel(s)) powering a drive chain (comprised of link plates and bearings) powering a driven gear(s) attached to the drive wheel;
an assembly attaching the steering wheel to the frame;
a steering device (handlebar) with devices to control brakes outside the wheel and, for many bikes, to shift the drive chain between gears.
the use of many bearings (to allow the wheels, the pedals and the crank arms to revolve and to allow the steering wheel to be turned);
pneumatic tires;
brakes, either inside the wheel hubs (coaster brakes), or on the outside of the wheel (rim brakes and disc brakes).

Most bicycles manufactured since 1890 are variations of the safety bicycle, industrial products, manufactured from manufactured components. The frame, wheels and most components other than tires were, made of steel ⁴ forged using the most modern methods known at the time. The bicycle became possible after industries developed efficient methods for the production of steel and the machining of steel into

tubes,
bearings,
sheets,
pins and
shaped forms of thin steel (e.g. wire spokes, the rims of wire wheels, bolts, screws and threaded fittings)

The technology and industry of the “invention” and manufacturing of the first safety bicycles is discussed in several Wikipedia articles:

Safety bicycle;
History of the bicycle;
Bicycle frame, including frame materials;
Lugged steel frame construction;
Bicycle fork;
Bicycle wheels, (an instance of wire wheels);
Pneumatic Tires;
Bicycle chain;
Bicycle gearing;
Derailleurs .

Orville and Wilbur Wright had a bike shop in Dayton Ohio and manufactured bicycles from 1896 until they gave up when cheaper mass produced safety bicycles became available, and turned to inventing airplanes. See:

Cycling fell out of fashion among inhabitants of the large American cities, and the American bicycle boom of the 1890s ended. There were several factors:

the inexpensive, durable single speed utility bicycle lacked other marketable selling qualities;
lack of roads and infrastructure in the early 20th century;
the lower demand for bicycles and lower prices of industrially mass produced bicycles affected bike shops;
the planning of transportation infrastructure around the automobile, and the lack of resources for bike paths, bike lanes and bike trails;
the limitations on cycling as means of commuting to work, traveling to shop and transporting purchased goods.

Features

Drive and Frames

The process for making seamless steel tubes was first patented in Germany in the 1880s. The thin walled steel tube was an important component in building the frames the safety bicycle in the 1890s and the first several decades of 20th century. Later, frames have been made with

wood and bamboo,
other metals – aluminum and titanium,
plastics and carbon fiber (a form of fiberglass, a plastic composite).

Wheels

Bicycle wheels, since the safety bicycle, have mainly been wire wheels, although to solid wheels have been used on some track and time trial racing bikes. Wire wheels were invented in 1808 by George Cayley. The rims have been steel but other materials are used. The spokes have been steel, but other materials have been used. The majority of hubs have been steel, but other materials have been used.

The drive wheel usually has a mechanism that allows the rider to propel the bike by pressing the pedals down and rotating the pedals forward and to coast by not pedaling. (With derailleurs and external gears the rider can also pedal backward; with coaster brakes pedaling backwards engages the brakes) The pedals are attached to crank arms attached to a spindle held by an assembly of bearings in the bottom bracket, at the bottom of the frame at the middle of the bike.

Bearings

The original safety bicycle had hundreds of individual bearings in several assemblies:

in the the hubs, bearings allowing the wheels to rotate;
in the bottom bracket, bearings for the rotation of the crankarms;
in the headset, bearing for the rotation of the handlebars and the steering.

A 21st century bicycle’s bearing sets are discussed in an article in BikeRadar dated in 2018.

Drive Trains

The drive train involves:

The rider who provides work, pushing on pedals;
Pedals revolve at the ends of crankshafts (crank arms) that rotate around a spindle in a bearing (the bottom bracket) in a structure in the frame of the bicycle (the bottom bracket shell);
A driving gear called a chainwheel on a bicycle;
A roller chain which fits between the cogs (i.e. the teeth) of the driving gear wheel and the cogs of the driven gear wheel(s);
Driven gear(s) on the drive wheel.

The drive train is a feature of single-speed bikes, utility bikes, most “road”, “mountain”, “hybrid”, “gravel”. “all-road” and other kinds of bikes. Chain drives became and remain the main kind of drive train used by manufacturers. There has been a Wikipedia article on bicycle drivetrain systems since 2010.

A toothed wheel is called a sprocket (technically, a gear or gear wheel that meshes with a chain and not directly with another gear). The sprockets stacked on a cassette on the drive wheel of a bicycle are often called cogs (technically the cogs are the teeth).

Variety

Examples

The safety bicycle has been incrementally redesigned. An article in Bicycle Times in 2017 ⁵was illustrated with images of 25 “influential” bicycle designs, including 19th century proto-bicycles, a couple of high mounts, Lawson’s design with a chain drive, the Rover (an English design believed to be the most successful early safety bicycle), a few other historical styles including the 1897 Spalding ⁶ Military (used by the US Army 25th Bicycle Infantry Corps; the article states incorrectly it was a 1986 design) and several 20th century styles. The article includes some single speed utility bikes but does not include:

designs since about 1993, except a 2005 fat tire bike;
cargo bikes;
rickshaws;
recumbent bicycles and tricycles;
tricycles;
tandems; and
e-bikes.

Single Speed Bicycles

Utility bicycles and other single speed bicycles were popular in Europe and North America as inexpensive durable vehicles for transportation over short distances, until the 1970s. These bicycles typically had bushed roller chain drive trains.

Racing

Bicycle racing on tracks, in velodromes and on roads became a popular entertainment in the United States and Europe. It became the source of innovations in bicycle design, components, the organization of racing events and the organization of sports. Some track racing bikes had a single gear, and did not have freewheels or brakes. Road racing led to the developments such as the derailleur mechanism for shifting gears, which influenced design and manufacturing of drive chains. There is a misconception (I have seen in a video on Global Cycling Networks YouTube channel in 2024) that derailleurs were invented by Tullio Campagnolo in about 1940. Derailleurs were in use since the early 20th century soon after road racing on racing bicycles in Europe became popular. There a hundreds of regional annual road racing events contested by teams of professional cyclists, including the 3 western European Grand Tours (Tour de France, Giro d’Italia, Vuelta a España). Other events for specialized racing bicycles:

Cyclo-cross races on variants of road racing bikes with special tires on unpaved courses.
Completing a long course in a fixed time, riding at night, and using unpaved roads (e.g. in Randonneuring).

The parallelogram rear derailleur was developed in the 1930s and adopted by road racing teams. Gentullio Campagnolo invented the quick-release skewer in 1930, the Cambia Corsa rear derailleur in 1933, and introduced the Gran Sport parallelogram rear derailleur in 1949.

Derailleurs did not become common road racing equipment until 1938 when Simplex introduced a cable-shifted derailleur.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derailleur#History

Off-road

Mountain Bicycles for off-road use were developed in the 1970s in the USA and were immediately put to use in racing events. The mountain bike brought many innovations in how bicycles were designed and built. New entrepreneurs began to manufacture new bikes and components and accessories. The derailleur was adopted as the preferred gear changing system for mountain bikes

Industry

Motor Vehicles

The motor vehicle industries were more successful in attracting financial resources, technical resources, consumer interest and political support than bicycle manufacturers, dealers, and shops. Motor vehicle manufacturing produced complex expensive machines and supported research on materials, tools and products.

Infrastructure (paved roads and bridges)

Motor vehicle use affected infrastructure in ways that improved public resources and affected the safety of cyclists. There were many paved roads in some parts of the world in the late 19th century. Many roads were paved or graded and surfaced with gravel to support the use of motor vehicles in the transportation of passengers and freight. Many roads are not safe for cyclists.

Globalized Bicycle Industry

Information on the development of bicycle manufacturing is not a popular Internet topic. At one time, after World War II, Americans imported many bicycles from Europe. There are fragments of information about the competition between French and Italian manufacturers in selling bikes to American distributors that discuss currency and trade issues before parts of Europe adopted common currency and before European and American manufacturers outsourced manufacturing to Asian factories. Italian bicycles, manufactured in Italy were attractive to American wholesale distributors because of the comparative currencies, and the impression of some Americans that Italian products were high value luxury products making Italian bicycles look like bargains.

David Edgerton counted bicycles as an old technology that was adapted in Asia in his 2007 book The Shock of the Old: Technology in Global History Since 1900. There is not a great deal of information about bicycle production in Asia on the Web. Bike manufacturing in Asia up to the 1970s was mainly devoted making bicycles for riders in Asia. The manufacturing capacity of Asian countries increased as American and European bike brands, then Asian component brands globalized (i.e. off-shored) their production. Several countries in Asia became manufacturing locations. Part of the Asian production was commissioned by bike manufacturers elsewhere in the world. Asian manufacturers became proficient in producing new bicycles and components for the world market. The ownership of bicycles increased in Asia as Asian production increased in the 1970s.

Shifts in consumer tastes in Europe and North America spread to other parts of the world. Consumers in Asia began to purchase bicycles similar to bicycles popular in other parts of the world. As they have become more affluent, Asian consumers have purchased more motor vehicles.

Bike shops

Factories

In the late 19th century bikes were still made in shops. The bike shop was, in that era, in a transition from the blacksmith shop where metal metal was worked for horse-powered transport. The problems solved by the artisans and mechanics who built safety bicycles in ” bike shops” at the end of the 19th century were probably recorded by journalists and published, but the information is not easily located on the internet.

For several decades in the 20th century, bike shops were machine shops with the machinery and mechanics to weld, cut and drill metal. Some shops evolved into manufacturers of bike tools or supplies – e.g. Park Tool of St. Paul Minnesota.

Journalists have visited some of the American, European and Japanese makers of customer bicycles and reviewed the way bikes were being manufactured at points in the 20th century. Jan Heine, the publisher of Bicycle Quarterly magazine, has studied

the way steel framed bicycles were made in France in the 1940s and 1950s,
the way Japanese artisans made
- specialized steel framed bicycles for racing, and
- specialized bicycles to ride into accessible mountain passes (“pass hunting”).

Bike Brand Shops

The industrial production of bicycles requires access to manufactured materials, energy, labor and knowledge. Investors want a return on investment. Bike brands developed networks for distributing and selling bikes as the industry evolved.The modern bike brand generates profit by reducing the costs of “raw” materials and labor, and by selling new bikes.

A few bike brands manufacture and sell department store bikes to general retail stores. General retail stores generally do not provide repair and service bicycles, or employ mechanics.

Many bike brands sell bikes to affiliated bike shops on credit at “wholesale” price, and make sure dealers pay for bikes delivered on time, and try to hold shops to selling bikes at the brand’s list prices. Affiliated bike shops have become sales outlets for bike brands – bike stores. Some brands tried to reduce cost and risks by opening brand stores. Locally, in Victoria BC, Trek bought an existing store and made it a Trek store, and Giant opened a downtown brand store.

Mechanics

The Wikipedia page about bike mechanics notes that this trade is sometimes recognized as a profession, or a skilled trade. In some areas of the world, a bike mechanic must be licensed and trained. In the USA and Canada, there is no licencing. Some bike mechanics have taken a formal course offered by a tool manufacturer (Park Tools, for example, offers some courses in person and many online resources such as YouTube videos. Most bike mechanics learn by serving a sort of apprenticeship. Many mechanics work for bike shops. A successful mechanic may expect to work for a successful competitive team’s sponsors and investors.

Wikipedia pages about mechanics discusses mainly the trade or profession of repairing and maintaining automobiles, trucks, “heavy” construction and farming machines, marine engines, and industrial machines. Mechanics built and maintained the industrial machines of the industrial revolution. Many machines must be operated by trained and skilled machinists.

Bike shops are expected to find ways to sell repair and upgrade services on a sustainable basis – which means selling bundles of annual or periodic “tune-ups”. Consumers familiar with the predatory practices of automobile service shops are unable to tell when mechanics are recommending necessary service or sowing fear, uncertainty and doubt about the conditions of bicycles.

2. Knowledge about Bicycles

Published Information

The bicycle was marketed and maintained in cultures with established methods of publishing information in print on paper. Information about materials, designs, mass production and marketing was not necessarily written down, or published. It required someone who was ready to write and publish information. The knowledge, skills and resources to publish and distribute newspapers, magazines and books were governed by technical and economic factors.

Some papers and books about the history and uses of bicycles have been written by historians, social scientist and engineers. These can be found in the archives of academic journals and in academic libraries, with effort

Some books about bicycle repair and maintenance were published and available from book stores and libraries. Some were written by mechanics or journalists who had established themselves in cycling magazines. Many books went out of print; few were added to library collections and many were removed from library collections. Few were digitized and published online.

Only a fraction of the knowledge of designers, makers, mechanics, professional riders, cycling fans and non-professional riders was published. Much that was published was published by journalists in periodicals. Much was transient information, of little use even within days. Journalism recorded some knowledge about building and maintaining bicycles.

Tom Nichols, in his 2017 book, The Death of Expertise (noted below) applied Sturgeon’s Law ⁷ to journalism in 2017:

… many people do not seeks information as much as confirmation, and when they receive information they do not like, they will gravitate to sources they prefer … Today, hundreds of media outlets cater to even the narrowest agendas and biases.

This mindset and the market that services it, creates … a combination of groundless confidence and deep cynicism …

Americans increasingly don’t trust anyone anymore. They view all institutions, including the media, with disdain.

Nichols, The Death of Expertise, cited below, pp. 157-158

Jan Heine, the proprietor of René Herse Cycles (formerly Compass Cycles) and Bicycle Quarterly is a fan of French bikes made 1935-1970 and regarded French bikes including Rene Herse bikes as good examples of all-road bicycles. He has published several books on 20th century bike building in France and Japan, most recently, The All-Road Bicycle Revolution (2021) which discusses “how all-road bikes work and what is important when choosing one. A must-read for cyclists interested in the technology of their bikes, and for every cyclist contemplating his or her next bike purchase.” It discussed elements of 20th century bike building techniques, and ideas about bikes. It notes that mid-20th century French randonneuse bikes demonstrate that the most recent technology is not necessary to make an efficient bicycle. Jan Heine also writes about modern bikes and gear. His company produces and sells modern tires and repair parts.

Some journalists and writers have produced books about cycling that may circulate in public library collections. For instance, in 2019 Evan Friss’s On Bicycles, A 200 Year History of Cycling in New York City was published by the Columbia University Press.

Some printed books and e-books about maintenance are available. In some instances, the book accompanies or summarizes advice delivered in other media. Examples:

Lennard Zinn, an experienced mechanic and journalist wrote successful books that are reasonably current, summarizing advice delivered in magazine columns:
- Zinn and the Art of Road Bike Maintenance (VeloPress, 4th edition), was published in 2013. The 5th edition was published October 2023 (distributed by Simon and Schuster). The 6th edition is expected to be published in June 2024;
- The 6th edition, (2018) of Zinn and the Art of Mountain Bike Maintenance is the most recent edition of that book;
Park Tools, the manufacturer of bike tools, publishes The Big Blue Book of Bicycle Repair. The current 4th edition was published in 2019. It is available as a print book from on line bookstores and bicycle supply stores, and as an ebook for the Amazon Kindle device;
The producers of the Global Cycling Network web products published GCN’s Essential Road Bike Maintenance in 2024 (sold by direct Web sales from GCN sites).

Science

Memory, common sense, consensus, evidence

Most people are aware of a particular cultural consensus reality which is based in part on observation and other sensory experience as recalled in memory and partly on the words of other people as recited in oral and written evidence, and in stories about the causes of things and events.

Many people are aware that some kinds of facts are based on evidence of things that few or no human beings have experienced or perceived without tools. The British Royal Society’s motto, adopted in the 17th century, Nullius in Verba, The society’s motto, Nullius in verba, is Latin for “Take nobody’s word for it”.⁸ reflecting the view of 17th century pioneers in science that common sense, common knowledge, religious belief and other ways of evaluating evidence were inferior to the most reliable physical evidence.

There has been an ongoing discussion in philosophy about what science can prove or disprove. According to Karl Popper (1934) a theory in the empirical sciences can never be proven, but it can be falsified, meaning that it can (and should) be scrutinized with decisive experiments. Popper was opposed to the classical account of knowledge, which he replaced with critical rationalism. According to Thomas Kuhn (1962) scientific fields undergo periodic “paradigm shifts” rather than solely progressing in a linear and continuous way, and that these paradigm shifts open up new approaches to understanding what scientists would never have considered valid before; and that the notion of scientific truth, at any given moment, cannot be established solely by objective criteria but is defined by a consensus of a scientific community.

There has been tension between the ideas of science and knowledge and political and social ideas about freedom and democracy in the 20th and 21st centuries. This has played out in real conflicts about decisions about science – the 21st century attacks by populists on “elitists” over vaccinations and other measures to control the transmission of the Covid-19 viruses are an example. In 2024 the effects of the internet were discussed in a public-facing article by Brian Leiter, “Free Speech on the Internet: The Crisis of Epistemic Authority” in the journal Daedelus.

Some expressions became popular with American workers and journalists, and many consumers:

there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch (“TANSTAFL”) ⁹ was said by working people about bars that offer a free lunch to patrons who buy alcohol (as remembered by the Speculative Fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein, and cyclists who read mid-20th century SF). It is useful to understand TANSTAFL to mean “it is what it is“, and
kludge.

“Wise Crowds”

Professional and competitive riders, working people who use bikes, commuters, people who ride for physical exercise, recreational riders, mechanics, business people, engineers, chemists and physicists have different ideas about what is good or useful.

The concept of a “wise crowd” is a statistical fact, but it does not mean that the opinions of a majority of people with opinions can be condensed to a crowd view of the facts about a technical idea. Is there a scientific consensus about bicycle chains? People who sell, fix, buy or ride bicycles do not assess facts the same way. Can a consensus be found using internet searching? Published material on the internet on the subject disagrees about a lot.

The Internet

Content

In commenting on material on the Internet, Tom Nichols, in his book, The Death of Expertise ¹⁰. Tom Nichols refers to SF writer Ted Sturgeon’s 1956 Law, “ninety percent of everything is crap” to make a point about search services:

The sheer size and volume of the Internet, and the inability to separate meaningful knowledge from random noise, means that good information will always be swamped by lousy data and weird detours. Worse, there’s no way of keeping up with it all …

….

… finding [good] information means plowing through a blizzard of useless or misleading information posted by everyone from …
Tom Nichols, The Death of Expertise, Oxford University Press, New York, 2017, at pp. 107-108

The book does not deal with bicycles. Nichols was complaining about the “death” of deference to his kind of expertise – the political discipline of international relations – a specialized area, but an unruly area for discussion. Nichols complains that the internet undermines the epistemic authority of persons who have expertise, but does not discuss analyze why the internet has facilitated the publication of falsehoods and unfounded beliefs as well as others have done.

The internet and Web came into being near the end of the 20th century, a century after mass production of safety bicycles and components began. The information about bicycle drive trains published on the internet reflects the knowledge and interests of cyclists and mechanics from 1980 to the early 2020s. The internet does not “know” about things that no one has tried to publish on the internet.

In the early days of the Internet, text had to be typed in to be published online. How much information was ever digitized? What publications were scanned or subjected to OCR with good character recognition? Were copyright issues negotiated? Much scientific and engineering material on internet and the web on materials like steel and lubricants has been copyrighted or is protected by some form of Intellectual Property laws; on the internet it may be gated or pay-walled.

Search Engines

A web search engine sifts content looking for text strings. Searches depend on searchable lines of text, an item title, or the organization of the resource (the identity of an author or publisher, channels, tags, indices etc.). Searches generate lists of links. Some search engine hits are still (in 2024) predominantly text or text with static images. Many pages and videos:

are direct advertisements for products, or endorsements;
are low value “reviews”.

Search engines can, with luck or careful queries, find articles that illustrate or explain the history of a technical idea, or adoption of technology by designers, manufacturers, investors, journalists and people who can afford to buy bicycles (and high speed internet), but cannot construct the history.

Search engines may show hits for videos, including YouTube videos but usually not podcasts. For podcasts, a user needs to search for podcast in an podcast index. After getting a good hit, a user needs luck and time to find the moments when a subject will be explained. Searches often miss recorded audio and video material (podcasts, YouTube) .

Reviews can be useful in finding products, but have limited value in evaluating products. It is not possible to find out how the author or publisher has influenced, or has preconceptions. Many reviews reflect personal experience in conditions that are not clearly explained, or quick reactions. The comparisons are between the products which the author or publisher mentions i.e. are limited to as to what is available or known to the writer. The testing, if any, is not scientific and does not assess the actual conditions of use. Many reviews or overviews are catalogues of methods, sometimes narrow, sometimes overly broad. Many make improbable claims about products.

Wikipedia

There are criticisms about whether and when Wikipedia provides accurate information on all topics. Wikipedia is reasonably fulsome on several relevant topics. The Wikipedia page for bicycle chain notes that chain cleaning and lubrication are complicated and controversial:

How best to lubricate a bicycle chain is a commonly debated question among cyclists. Liquid lubricants penetrate to the inside of the links and are not easily displaced, but quickly attract dirt. “Dry” lubricants, often containing wax or Teflon, are transported by an evaporating solvent, and stay cleaner in use. The cardinal rule for long chain life is never to lubricate a dirty chain, as this washes abrasive particles into the rollers. Chains should be cleaned before lubrication. The chain should be wiped dry after the lubricant has had enough time to penetrate the links. An alternative approach is to change the (relatively cheap) chain very frequently; then proper care is less important. Some utility bicycles have fully enclosing chain guards, which virtually eliminate chain wear and maintenance. On recumbent bicycles the chain is often run through tubes to prevent it from picking up dirt, and to keep the cyclist’s leg free from oil and dirt.
Wikipedia (October 2021) on Bicycle Chain

There are many resources reflecting many opinions. Comments in forums often reflect experience, but the amount of experience with the products is not clear. Some comments reflect frustration that the bike industry keeps selling more expensive new bikes and components while bikes are harder to maintain without tools, supplies and knowledge.

Large Platforms

Cory Doctorow writes some SF, and some non-fiction about the internet, information technology and business. He has written about the business practices of the large tech companies including The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation (2023) and Chokepoint Capitalism (2022). He identifies Google search as a leading example of a business strategy, which he names in an unflattering way:

… let’s examine how enshittification works. It’s a three-stage process: first, platforms are good to their users. Then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers. Finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, there is a fourth stage: they die
Cory Doctorow, ‘Enshittification’ is coming for absolutely everything, Financial Times, February 7, 2024

Google Search was once the best Web search service. Users believed the Google company when it said it was against evil (self-serving, greedy tricks?). The modern Google search tool is full of advertising. Search returns now promote “sponsored” content. Cory Doctorow on Google search:

Google’s search results are terrible. The top of the page is dominated by spam, scams, and ads. A surprising number of those ads are scams. Sometimes, these are high-stakes scams played out by well-resourced adversaries who stand to make a fortune by tricking Google …

But often these scams are perpetrated by petty grifters who are making a couple bucks at this. These aren’t hyper-resourced, sophisticated attackers. They’re the SEO [search engine optimization] equivalent of script kiddies, and they’re running circles around Google …

Google search is empirically worsening. The SEO industry spends every hour that god sends trying to figure out how to sleaze their way to the top of the search results, and even if Google defeats 99% of these attempts, the 1% that squeak through end up dominating the results page for any consequential query …

….

… Google’s algorithmic failures, which send the worst sites to the top of the heap, have made it impossible for high-quality review sites to compete …

You’ve doubtless encountered these bad review sites. Search for “Best ______ 2024” and the results are a series of near-identical lists, strewn with Amazon affiliate links. Google has endlessly tinkered with its guidelines and algorithmic weights for review sites, and none of it has made a difference. For example, when Google instituted a policy that reviewers should “discuss the benefits and drawbacks of something, based on your own original research,” sites that had previously regurgitated the same lists of the same top ten Amazon bestsellers “peppered their pages with references to a ‘rigorous testing process,’ their ‘lab team,’ subject matter experts ‘they collaborated with,’ and complicated methodologies that seem impressive at a cursory look.”

But … grandiose claims … result in zero in-depth reviews and no published data. Moreover, these claims to rigorous testing materialized within a few days of Google changing its search ranking and said that high rankings would be reserved for sites that did testing.
Cory Doctorow, Pluralisic Blog, February 21,2024

Bruce Schneier and Judith Donath made a similiar point discussing search using “AI” tools built with Large-Language Model (“LLM”) technology:

… [publishing’s] core task is to connect writers to an audience. Publishers work as gatekeepers, filtering candidates and then amplifying the chosen ones. Hoping to be selected, writers shape their work in various ways. This article might be written very differently in an academic publication, for example, and publishing it here entailed pitching an editor, revising multiple drafts for style and focus, and so on.

The internet initially promised to change this process. Anyone could publish anything! But so much was published that finding anything useful grew challenging. It quickly became apparent that the deluge of media made many of the functions that traditional publishers supplied even more necessary.

Technology companies developed automated models to take on this massive task of filtering content, ushering in the era of the algorithmic publisher. The most familiar, and powerful, of these publishers is Google. Its search algorithm is now the web’s omnipotent filter and its most influential amplifier, able to bring millions of eyes to pages it ranks highly, and dooming to obscurity those it ranks low.

In response, a multibillion-dollar industry—search-engine optimization, or SEO—has emerged to cater to Google’s shifting preferences, strategizing new ways for websites to rank higher on search-results pages and thus attain more traffic and lucrative ad impressions.

Unlike human publishers, Google cannot read. It uses proxies, such as incoming links or relevant keywords, to assess the meaning and quality of the billions of pages it indexes. Ideally, Google’s interests align with those of human creators and audiences: People want to find high-quality, relevant material, and the tech giant wants its search engine to be the go-to destination for finding such material. Yet SEO is also used by bad actors who manipulate the system to place undeserving material—often spammy or deceptive—high in search-result rankings. Early search engines relied on keywords; soon, scammers figured out how to invisibly stuff deceptive ones into content, causing their undesirable sites to surface in seemingly unrelated searches. Then Google developed PageRank, which assesses websites based on the number and quality of other sites that link to it. In response, scammers built link farms and spammed comment sections, falsely presenting their trashy pages as authoritative.

Google’s ever-evolving solutions to filter out these deceptions have sometimes warped the style and substance of even legitimate writing. When it was rumored that time spent on a page was a factor in the algorithm’s assessment, writers responded by padding their material, forcing readers to click multiple times to reach the information they wanted. This may be one reason every online recipe seems to feature pages of meandering reminiscences before arriving at the ingredient list.

The arrival of generative-AI tools has introduced a voracious new consumer of writing. Large language models, or LLMs, are trained on massive troves of material—nearly the entire internet in some cases. They digest these data into an immeasurably complex network of probabilities, which enables them to synthesize seemingly new and intelligently created material; to write code, summarize documents, and answer direct questions in ways that can appear human.

These LLMs have begun to disrupt the traditional relationship between writer and reader. Type how to fix broken headlight into a search engine, and it returns a list of links to websites and videos that explain the process. Ask an LLM the same thing and it will just tell you how to do it. Some consumers may see this as an improvement: Why wade through the process of following multiple links to find the answer you seek, when an LLM will neatly summarize the various relevant answers to your query? Tech companies have proposed that these conversational, personalized answers are the future of information-seeking. But this supposed convenience will ultimately come at a huge cost for all of us web users.
Bruce Schneier, Judith Donath, The Rise of Large-Language Model Optimization, April 25, 2024, Schneier on Security

Another factor has been a change in Google’s vision of the scope of its mission in response to the use of AI generated content. An SEO consultant complained in 2024:

You’re facing a future where AI can generate infinite amounts of human-like content. What do you do?

Google’s response was twofold:

Promote the vague concept of E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness). In practice, this translates to favoring well-known brands and established websites.
Abandon the mission of indexing everything. Instead, become selective. Very selective.

… Google is no longer trying to index the entire web. … it’s become extremely selective, refusing to index most content. This isn’t about content creators failing to meet some arbitrary standard of quality. … it’s a fundamental change in how Google approaches its role as a search engine.

… Google now seems to operate on a “default to not index” basis. It only includes content in its index when it perceives a genuine need. This decision appears to be based on various factors:

Extreme content uniqueness: It’s not enough to write about something that isn’t extensively covered. Google seems to require content to be genuinely novel or fill a significant gap in its index.

Perceived authority: Sites that Google considers highly authoritative in their niche may have more content indexed, but even then, it’s not guaranteed.

Brand recognition: Well-known brands often see most of their content indexed, while small or unknown bloggers face much stricter selectivity.

Temporary indexing and de-indexing: In practice, Google often indexes new content quite quickly, likely to avoid missing out on breaking news or important updates. Soon after, Google may de-index the content, and it remains de-indexed thereafter. So getting initially indexed isn’t necessarily a sign that Google considers your content valuable.

Vincent Schmalbach, July 15, 2024 Google Now Defaults to Not Indexing Your Content

This was noted by other commentators:

If this is indeed what Google is up to, then you have to wonder what its leaders have been smoking. Among other things, they’re proposing to build machines that can sensibly assess qualities such as expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness in an online world where just about anything goes. Could someone please take them aside and remind them that a tech company tried something like this way back in 1995 and came unstuck. It was called Yahoo! Remember it?
John Naughton, The Guardian (Observer magazine), Joly 20, 2024, Google’s wrong answer to the threat of AI – stop indexing content

Other Google “services” e.g. YouTube, and most other commercial search platforms share the problems.

Web Sites

Mechanics and Journalists

Web sites discuss aspects of cycling, bicycle maintenance etc. Many have articles or pages on maintaining drive chains. For instance: BikeRadar, June 26, 2022 , Bicycle chains explained

Sheldon Brown, a bike mechanic in Boston, and a modern polymath, started writing on the Web by the early 1990s. He had contacts among local riders and shops, and participated in Usenet news groups and other online forums on cycling. Sheldon Brown and his original contributors wrote extensively and collected internet material. The Bicycle Technical Information pages (“BTI”) were a leading online source of information about bicycle repair and bicycles. The pages captured parts of the histories of bicycles and components, manufacturing, repair, touring and riding. Sheldon Brown admired and promoted Sutherlands Handbook for Bicycle Mechanics by Howard Sutherland, (the 6th and 7th editions are available as of 2022-2024 from Sutherland’s Bicycle Shop Aids in California), and published articles by several authors on technical bicycle repair and maintenance matters. His web wages on cycling were hosted by his employer, Harris Cyclery, until it closed in 2021. The BTI pages have been updated since his death in 2008, and continued to be published after Harris Cyclery closed in June 2021 by a community of friends and fans; some topics have been updated or added. The BTI pages that mention chains, lubrication and maintenance include:

an entry on chain in the bicycle glossary;
a major article on chain maintenance;
other articles on gears & chains, including the 2002 article Chain Care, Wear and Skipping by the late Jobst Brandt.

Some of the contributors to the BTI pages were engineers and mechanics. Some read speculative (science) fiction, and used folk sayings that had been used in SF (e.g. TANSTAFL, kludge) to describe the experience the realities of riding and fixing bicycles and the results of the financial, organizational and decision making processes of bicycle manufacturers, politicians and traffic engineers.

The BTI pages reflect a perspective on innovations in the bicycle building and selling industries in the 1990s. Some comments on maintaining and lubricating chains on the BTI pages do not hold up (for instance, that riders should not try to remove factory grease from a chain). The BTI pages do not address many maintenance issues arising from innovations, since then, although some pages have been updated.

Other sources – for example Park Tools books and social media (YouTube videos) have become useful.

This comment in a BTI page still rings true:

Chain maintenance is one of the most controversial aspects of bicycle mechanics. Chain durability is affected by riding style, gear choice, whether the bicycle is ridden in rain or snow, type of soil in the local terrain, type of lubricant, lubrication techniques, and the sizes and condition of the bicycle’s sprockets. Because there are so many variables, it has not been possible to do controlled experiments under real-world conditions. As a result, everybody’s advice about chain maintenance is based on anecdotal “evidence” and experience. Experts disagree on this subject, sometimes bitterly. This is sometimes considered a “religious” matter in the bicycle community, and much vituperative invective has been uttered in this regard between different schismatic cults.
Bicycle Technical Information, Chain Maintenance by Sheldon Brown and John Allen. See the heading “A Religious Question”

Some scientific research and publications are summarized in Bike Chains, Part 3 in this series, under the headings and subheadings Lubricants: Scientists, Lubricants: Paraffin, and Lubricating a Chain: Academic Research.

Online Magazines, Journals & Cycling Sites

Sheldon Brown & John Allen, Bicycle Technical Information, Chain Maintenance

BikeGremlin take the range of views and experiences of riders and mechanics into account. It addressed lubrication in the article Bicycle Chain Lubricants explained, apparently written in 2016 and updated in 2018 and 2021.

BikeRadar ran its Complete Guide to Bike Gears in April 2020, an introduction and overview of drive trains.

CyclingTips was an online cycling magazine with strong technical coverage. CyclingTips covered chain maintenance, cleaning, lubrication and wear and modern pioneers of testing lubricants and chains in text articles and audio media. CyclingTips published some “endless FAQ” articles (detailed articles, periodically revised) on some components and issues of maintaining modern bicycle, but these are not online after the new publisher deleted content:

Title, or Component or issue	Date	Endless, Revised
Seeking the holy grail: A fast chain lube that saves you money	March 2018
Disc Brakes	May 2018	August 2019
Tubeless Tires	2019	October 2021
Finding the best bicycle chain: What over 3,000 hours of testing revealed	December 2019
Waxing Chains	August 2020	March 2021

Most CyclingTips text material was removed from the Internet – when the new publisher (the hedge fund that controlled the “Outside” family of magazines and online content) made changes in 2022 . CyclingTips NerdAlert podcast discussed technical and repair issues. The panelists often mentioned the cycling industry’s history of selling products that have drawbacks and flaws. Most of this content, also, was unpublished under the new management; or move behind the “Outside” app paywall. Discussions of chain maintenance:

The podcast in Nerd Alert series in August 2021 on chain lube testing;[Updated; March 16, 2022, “Finding the best chain lube for your needs”]

Escape Collective began to produce content in March 2023. Many of the writers and podcast panelists who had produced content for CyclingTips joined Escape Collective.

Discussions of chain wear on the internet often address readers and viewers interested in other issues:

speed in races
- on different kinds of bicycles
- under different conditions, and
durability and value of bicycles and components.

I am not able to keep the themes, separate and to separate the credible scientists, engineers, manufacturers, marketers, and journalists from the herd of misinformed noise. I will flag a few events and people I thought were credible as I discuss chain wear in this series of posts.

When an internet source or a published book or magazine mentions a person, a company, a product or an idea, internet search can lead to material that can be read and followed up on. This can be an effective way of researching.

The Wikipedia article failed, at the time, to explain wet and dry lubricants.

3. Chains

Introduction

The basics of drive chain are alternating inner and outer links, pins holding the links, and the ability to bend at the ends of links. Rollers and bushings over the pins have been used since the first decades after safety bicycles appeared. Gearing and gear shifting are important factors. There have been other gear and shifting systems, including gear systems installed inside the hub of the drive wheel. The chain drive with external gears and derailleur shifting has dominated.

The discussion of roller chain will be continued in Part 2 of this series. Part 7 will discuss the durability of the modern steel bushingless chain required for effective shifting of gears with derailleur mechanisms. In the early 21st century, the focus has been on elongation wear.

Chain Line and the Bike Frame

The most efficient line from the chain wheel to the gear on the drive wheel for single speed bicycles was parallel to the bicycle.

The chain almost always has to run over and under a chain stay – usually on the right side of a conventional two wheeled safety bicycle. The chain stays are welded or attached to the bottom of seat tube near the bottom bracket shell, and to the seat stay. The chain stay is one side of a closed triangle. It was necessary to use a chain “breaker” tool to displace a pin to remove the chain before the development of master links. By the early 20th century the bike industry used bushed steel roller chain on most bicycles.

Chains do not move laterally on single speed bikes, or on gear systems inside the hub.

Competitive riders and bicycle designers favored systems that allowed the rider to shift gears to use power effectively and respond to changes in conditions and the goals of rider – e.g. going faster with the same effort. Road racing brought the development of derailleurs to shift the chain onto other gears – and a flexible chain that could operate at a slight deviation from a straight chainline. Chains are designed to flex to displace far enough to change gears when pushed by the pulleys (jockey wheels) of a derailleur. Innovators altered the design of chains to get lighter, more efficient chains. At the end of the 1970s, a road bike might have 5 or even 6 cogs on a rear cassette. Mountain bikes adopted derailleurs, flexing roller chain, and other technology from road racing. Mountain biking became competitive and mountain bikes became popular. For a time, drive train components were specialized: road or mountain/hybrid. Some innovations made in road chains or mountain bike chains became common or dominant in chain manufacturing. time.

The laterally flexible bushingless chain became the dominant design by the end of the 20th century. By 2021, many, perhaps most new bikes, other than e-bikes, sold in Canada and the USA had rear wheel gear cassettes with 11 or 12 gears, and laterally flexible bushingless chains.

The laterally flexible bushingless chain with derailleur shifting is capable of “dropping” the chain while the chain is being shifted between gear wheels and while the chain is being powered. The chain can be jammed by the crank arms or other moving parts against the frame. A chain stressed when the power ceases to be applied in the primary direction can fail:

chain link plates may fracture,
rivets may fracture, and
rivets may pull out of the plates.

Material and Wear

Steel has the tensile strength for the purpose of transmitting human effort to drive a bicycle, and could be produced with smooth surfaces when the safety bicycle became common. Manufacturers have used various steels; 0ther metals have been considered. Few are strong without becoming brittle. Manufacturers use other metals to make alloys to coat or plate over roller chain components.

The parts that connect the links are made with tight tolerances, for transmission of force. There are microscopic gaps between pins and rollers and/or bushings, which allow the links to pivot to rotate on the chain rings and the cogs of the driving wheel transmission apparatus.

Bicycle roller chains become longer by a small amount as the chain is used. Microscopic wear on individual links adds up. The elongation of chain by wear being wear is well known to bicycle mechanics and to engineers:

Cyclists often speak of chain “stretch”, as if the side plates of an old chain were pulled out of shape by the repeated stresses of pedaling. This is not actually how chains elongate. The major cause of chain “stretch” is wearing away of the metal where the link pin rotates inside of the bushing (or the “bushing” part of the inside plate) as the chain goes onto and off of the sprockets. If you take apart an old, worn-out chain, you can easily see the little notches worn into the sides of the link pins by the inside edges of the bushings, or the formed side plates of a bushingless chain.

Bicycle Technical Information, Chain and Sprocket Wear, see section “How Chains Elongate”

The experience of many industries with steel bearings demonstrates that steel wears, even when lubricated. Riders assume, correctly, that steel is a very durable material. But chains, even when lubricated well and maintained, wear. An elongated worn chain does not fit the gears – the chain wheels and cassette cogwheels – and abrades those components of the drive train.

Some chains with hard steel plating and good maintenance and lubrication resist longitudinal wear and elongation.

Specifications, Standards and Gauges

Elongation of 11 and 12 speed bushingless chains by .5 – one half of one percent – of the length of a chain is the replacement point. It is implicit in the design of chain gauges (chain checker tools), and has been known to the employees of bike shops and to some some users for decades. 11 speed chains and rear cassettes were introduced by Campagnolo in 2008, and by Shimano in 2013. 11 speed cassettes and chains became a common feature of new bikes. By 2024, some drive trains for 13 gears on the rear cassette are being made and marketed

The length of a chain varies, depending on the length of the chain stays, the sizes of the largest chain ring and the largest rear gear, and the rear derailleur shape and size. A chain may have 55 to 59 links (counting a pair of 1 Outer link plus 1 Inner as 1 link) which can also be counted as 110 to 118 links. A chain may be 1397 mm. to 1473 mm. long

Chain gauges checking for elongation started to be distributed and sold in the 1980s. They were noted:

There … also special tools made to measure chain wear; these are a bit more convenient, though by no means necessary, and most — except for the Shimano TL-CN40 and TL-CN41 — are inaccurate

Gauges are more important than BTI said. The problem of the accuracy of most gauges is still present in 2024. A chain gauge checks for elongation in a span of 12-14 links. The gauge has to precisely cut (machined) and precisely used to detect elongation of .5 mm. It is useful to put the gauge on different places on the chain to look for wear.
Sheldon Brown & John S. Allen, about 1990, Bicycle Technical Information pages, Measuring Chain Wear section in Chain and Sprocket Wear

The existence and marketing of chain gauges suggests the modern cycling component, tool, and maintenance industries regard chains as consumable,and expect riders to replace chains.

Many mechanics support replacing chains that shift badly, and posit the concept of lateral wear as the cause of poor shifting. In 2024 a new tool was marketed to measure elongation wear more precisely, and also to quantify the lateral flexibility of bushingless drive trains. There are opinions, there is no data and there are no standards on when laterally worn chains should be replaced.

Master Links

Master links, devices that replace a single outer link, became common in the 1980s and 1990s. Master links make it easier to remove a chain for cleaning, maintenance and replacement. They were noted in the BTI glossary (see Sheldon Brown and BTI under Cycling Knowledge, below). Even with master links, removing a chain is an operation which many cyclists do not have the time, tools or knowledge to attempt.

Friction & Lubrication

Lubricants are materials that are applied to the surfaces of other materials to reduce friction when force applied to the materials and the surfaces move against each other. A lubricant reduces kinetic friction by changing static friction to lubricated friction, allowing metal surfaces to slide or turn without getting hot and making noise.

For much of the 20th century, most bike chains were lubricated with oils manufactured by refining petroleum and processing the refined product into useful material. Motor oil was and is a product to lubricate parts of an internal combustion engine. At the end of the 19th century, industry settled on the internal combustion engine as the device that could be used to power passenger cars, motorcycles, transport trucks, farm machinery and industrial machines. Motor oil was commonly available in the places bikes were used, and it was a popular lubricant for decades.

Safety bicycles were once almost inconsequential for the use of energy, or as a means of transportation.

Academics and industry researched and developed many specialized lubricants. Bike chain lube has become a specialty market. Bike shops sell what they can get from suppliers; bike owners/users have limited help in finding and choosing the best lubricants. Manufacturers and distributors will make all kinds of claims for their products. The best chain lubricants are not easily found and applied. Many are not effective at avoiding chain wear.

There is more on chains in Bike Chains, Part 2 and on lubrication in Bike Chains, Part 3 .