De-restricted Chain Slip...

[apreen92]

Hi Folks,

Recently de-restricted my bike (loving it!), however, when laying the power down I have found chain-slip becoming more of a problem.

This only happens in certain gears and is amplified after riding in heavy rain/muddy roads.

The fact the slip is only occurring in certain gears (the slipping gear changes frequently), rules out anything to do with the chain (currently running a KMC ebike specific chain).

I commute 40 miles a day, over some bumpy roads, however, maintain the bike weekly (cleaning the moving parts), therefore the mechanical components are muck-free.

My only thought is that the bumpy roads may be knocking the gear adjustments out slightly.

Does anyone else share this experience? If so are there any measures to circumvent this?

Thanks,

Andy

 

[Nealh]

Worn cassette teeth or a tight link ?

 

[apreen92]

Will need to confirm tonight. Have only had the bike a month, so they would have worn fairly rapidly!

 

[JPGiant]

Chain slap over bumpy sections.
Which RD do you have?

 

[georgehenry]

Welcome to the high mileage crank drive commuter club.

Check for a tight link but as a fellow high mileage crank drive commuter I find that the smallest rings with the least teeth on your cassette will start to jump first sooner or later if your motor is assisting above the cut off.

If you only ride on the road and do not need the spread of gearing your bike currently has the simplest solution is to over gear your bike with a bigger chain ring so that at your highest cruising speed you are in not in top gear but a gear with about fourteen teeth or more as the more teeth you have in the gear you use most the more resistant to wear it will be and consequently last a lot longer.

A wide range cassette might still have a 40 tooth or sometimes even bigger bottom gear ring and all you need is a low enough gear to get you up the steepest hill you need to climb.

With a Yamaha system you could have a dual chain ring front mech system to achieve the same result but retain your lower gears.

 

[The Bear]

My chain started slipping recently and when inspecting the cassette I noticed some of the teeth had completely rounded off.

I guess I had let my chain stretch too far, causing the teeth to round off? Now had a new cassette & chain fitted and all is well.

 

[vfr400]

My chain started slipping recently and when inspecting the cassette I noticed some of the teeth had completely rounded off.

I guess I had let my chain stretch too far, causing the teeth to round off? Now had a new cassette & chain fitted and all is well.

Be careful about judging the wear on a cassette. The teeth on a decent cassette are not all the same. They have a pattern of different shapes to aid shifting. Some of the teeth are in the shape of a shark's tooth when it's new and some of the teeth have elongated curves between the teeth. Both of those features make it look like it's worn. If a cassette is worn, you'll see burrs formed at the bottom of the leading edge of all the teeth on a particular ring.

 

[georgehenry]

I am using cheap shimano steel cassettes combined with kmc chains and a quaility narrow wide front chain ring paired to give me the best compromise gearing on my single chain ring set up for my off road route to work and on road commute home on my 9 speed Haibike hard tail set up.

My cassettes have reduced in price over time and the last ones I bought off Amazon were £12.95 including delivery and the last Kmc chains were two for £18 including delivery and at that price I am not too bothered how quickly they wear out but hope that I will fit about two lots of cassettes and chains a year or about 3000 miles.

The front chain ring lasts a lot longer. My 42 tooth chain ring and 12/36 cassette allow me enough range to climb the steepest off road more technical hills I need to off road and average 20mph for my 10 mile road ride home.

In my opinion crank drive bikes come into their own off road and if your commute is entirely on the road a rear hub drive bike will last a magnitude of time longer in terms of the motor and drive train and be a more relaxing bike to ride on the road.

If I know my start times at work mean that I will be riding on the road there and back I now use an old Oxygen rear hub Emate City of 2011 vintage to average about the same speed of 20 mph and who's chain ring, chain and rear cassette have been on an embarrassing amount of time and miles and though definitly pretty worn out still work just fine after about 10,000 miles.

However I have not bought a new bike for some time (2015) and the new Bosch Active line motors are getting very good reviews and a bike like the Raleigh Motus might make a very good commuter bike.

 

[georgehenry]

Took a few pictures on the way in to work today and I hope you can see why I enjoy it so much.

10.702 miles now completed since I started riding this bike to work in March 2015. 68 miles in the last three days. Still the first 400Wh battery. Used 32% of the battery on the 12 mile cross country ride to work and 37% on the faster 10 mile road ride home averaging 20mph.