When to Replace Bike Chain? 3 Ways to Know

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Everything comes with a certain expire date. The same goes for the parts of your bike. You have to concerned about replacing a worn-out part before it ruins the whole system. And to make that happen, you’ll have to know the right time to replacement.

One part of the bike that gets into replacement needs quite often is the bike chain. So today, let’s have a clear discussion over when to replace a bike chain.

When to replace bike chain? A bike chain is not like plastic pedals that got easily broken. Rather it depends on care and maintenance. To give you a clear concept, it should be replaced after 2 years on average only when no accident or less care.

See What the Warranty Says

One of the most important things to consider when it comes to bike chain replacement is the brand’s warranty service. Yes, you’ve heard the right as it gives an assurance of products working for a time period. Also, most of the brands give for over 1 year of warranty support on the bike chain.

How can you know when to replace a bike chain? It actually depends on the brand’s time period of durability. For example, the SHIMANO bike chain manufacturer provides for over 1 year of warranty service that means it will work properly for 1 year straight.

Besides, SRAM & KMC bike chain provides extra features but offers one year of warranty service just like SHIMANO, Zonkie and Jovitec bike chain. On top, warranty service can give the full facility on products workings by repairing and restoring for not having any additional product-related problems.

With this warranty service, you can easily treat your product issues by returning broken or wronged bike chain. For that reason, we suggest checking your brand warranty if it is on time-period and see what it says to give replacements. If you find any problem, you can contact the brand details number.

The Rule of Two-Thousands-Mile

To begin with, the two-thousand miles rules are a common rule that is applied for avoiding accelerated wear of bikes cassette and chainrings. Actually, it is a basic rule. The two chains will not put on the same rate since the two riders won’t treat their chains exactly the same.

Are you a person who like to spins simple gears, carefully cleans and lubes bike chain on every ride? If so, then try not to ride on rain or any rainy area and put balance weights on the bike for faster and longer than 2,000 miles riding experience.

On the other hand, if you like to ride like a pro, love to spins big gears, rain ride or pro biker style, then you can get 2,000 miles farther your chain will be a pipe dream while riding. In fact, it will work speedily on the rainy area.

No doubt that both riding styles are different on their own way. For that reason, a chain wear measuring tool helps to give the best to once in a while used for determining the condition of the bike chain. In fact, it gives the right result to understand if you need a replacement.

Use a Ruler to Test

So, what is a ruler test? Well, a ruler test is a measurement technique that gives standard results for deciding on having a replacement or not. With this test, you may need to get an average ruler to measure the inches of bike chains if it’s okay or not.

Of course, you need basic ideas for measuring every half-inch of bike chain pins. In other words, it requires placing the ruler to see the rivets of the chain position from one rivet to another one that is 12 inches away. Also, you can draw bike chains taut for a starting point.

After that, line up the edges of the ruler at the zero marks by using the center of chain rivet. And then, see the result where they align each other. If you see the rivets are on the over-center, it means the bike chains are stable.

If you see the chains rivet is below 1/16 of an inch in front of 12-inches mark, then the chain’s life is not 100% strong but can go for enough time. On the contrary, if the chain rivet is more than 1/16 inches in front of the 12-inches mark, it indicates you have to find a replacement.

Read Also: What size bike chain do you need?

Conclusion

That’s all folks! We are about to end today’s conversation, hopefully, you have a better idea about When to replace a bike chain. It’s actually better to go and have a bike checkup from someone expert. They will not only tell you about the worn-out chain but also let you know if some other part needs your attention.

So, to make things better, have a good sense of bike replacement parts and enjoy the effort of flawless riding. Good Luck!