What's your regime - please let us know what your triggers for maintaining your chain is and what it consists of.

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I swear to Ipone chain cleaner and transmission oil for lubing. On the road, unless on a very long trip, I resort to diesel, a tooth brush and a rag (don't carry lube except for on very long trips).

I'm rigorous with my chain maintenance. I try to clean after every "longish" ride or 500 kms, whichever comes first. If I've been riding in filth, I may do it as soon as it is convenient to do so. Also, before and after garaging the bike for a long time.

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Relaxed. I mostly ride on tarmac, I use high-quality sealed chains, I watch the rollers and lube the chain when they start getting shiny (rather than dull) and about every 1000km. I have a Kettenmax chain cleaning thingie but mostly just use it when I see that the chain is filthy; I'll also clean it off with a power-washer when I wash my bike.

On a long trip, when I do 500-700km per day, yeah I will lube the chain afterwards. And if it's been raining.

I'm an 'as and when' chain owner. I have a diy chain oiler (or did before I broke it recently) on one of my main bikes and every time I stop for fuel I'll glance at the chain. If it looks dry I'll set the oiler to deliver some over the next 20-30 miles. If it looks oily I'll leave it alone. Unless it's wet in which case it'll get more oil more often.

No chain cleaning though; I bought into that many years ago when you had to take the chain off, scrub it in paraffin and boil it in some sort of black grease. No longer I'm afraid. I'd rather replace the chain than go through that again. If dirt wears it out then so be it.

My little 125 Suzuki has an enclosed chain. I put some oil on it 10,000 miles ago when I changed the front sprocket. It's still oily and hasn't worn. Not bad for something not much bigger than a bicycle chain with no O or Z or any other sort of rings. Just goes to show what the bigger bikes are missing (protection in case you're wondering)

I add a little oil with my chain oiler at the beginning and end of each ride. Thats it.

Take the advice your mother gave when you were nine: "If you keep playing with it, it'll drop off".

Andy

Anyway , Andy, back to chains !!
I oil my chain through a syringe and tube that is fixed near front sprocket and
i use old engine oil and i never let my chain run dry !
33,000 miles on a crf1000 and the chain was as good as new !
K

In the old days:

I removed my chain and boiled it grease.

Nowadays:

The important lubricatation is inside O-rings. No need to mess with that.
Clean some time and and some oil. Just for the other surface.
But very seldom.....
No need


BTW; Drive a Moto Guzzi and you do no even have to think about such things

Cleaning chain on your Vespa?

Sent from my Z981 using Tapatalk

Riding bikes continuously for 43 years now and since automatic chain oilers became available I have used nothing else since.

Curious about chain oilers - know nothing about it. Doesn't it create a mess? Does it lube effectively and evenly? How about cleaning?

To me, cleaning is as important as lubing. And, using stuff that doesn't penetrate behind the rings or deteriorate them. It is also not only about the chain, but the sprocket as well.

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IMHO you don't want it if you ride in dusty conditions oil + dust = grinding compound. It works very good if you mostly deal with the rain.

I try to do diesel cleaning/maintenance after wet or dirt ride, it ends up being something 500-2000mi give or take.

Personally I can't wait when BMW/Regina Endurance M diamond chain will be available in 520 size.

When you have a metal to metal contact , you need some sort of lubrication.
Oil on your chain will do 3 things !
1.. it makes the bike run so much quieter
2 ..it adds many more miles to the life of your chain
3.. also it will give you more POWER as the friction is less

try riding say a 250 with a dry chain.... then oil it .... you will be amazed !

They are lash-ups. Everything from someones high school electronics project through to hospital syringes and fish tank hose. The environment at the chain sprocket interface will make a surface protection/paint/adhesives engineer sit sucking his thumb rocking back and forth in the fetal position, it is no place for 3M pads and cable ties. If you are lucky they stay put and apply something like a suitable amount of suitable lube. If you are unlucky they get cut to pieces when they lose out in fight with the chain, drench the tyre in a unsuitable lube or do nothing and give you a false sense of security.

I will not have another. Scotoil was the wrong lube, too sticky, never going to do anything more than stick dirt on and make grinding paste. Engine oil rotted the seals on one of the fish tank hose and syringe contraptions and a bit of WD-40 can straw bosticked in was never going to control the flow. Both cost more in time and cash than I'd have spent with a rag and oil can or stripping the back end of a Bavarian Behemoth to get at the splines.

The correct current solution is the factory made, bellows design chain case MZ used. Industrial chain lasted 100k+ miles. I hope the BMW teflon/diamond works. Until then is it really so hard to wipe it with an oily rag?*

*I don't use spray cans, sticky is bad. Tot up how much you'd pay wurth and you may as well just buy a new chain when they wear out. These things wre consumables, so consume them.

Before buying an oiler do a lifetime cost analysis. I'd have to successfully transfer the same oiler from bike to bike three times.

Andy

If you want more power try changing your o ring chain for one with no rings. That'll do far more than waving an oily rag at your existing one. It won't last but then no one said power was cheap. I changed no ring chain for a 'modern' one on an old 500cc Kawasaki many years ago and was amazed at how much slower it was. Slower to the point that I went back to the original chain. Bike engine power has had to increase just to compensate for whats lost in turning all those O rings.

In a sensible world we'd all ride bikes that had chains protected from the elements but for as far back as my biking memory goes (and probably much further than that) exposed chain = sporty and enclosed chain = boring old plodder. That's because sports bikes used to lead the market and they took their styling cues from the race track. So we drag our worn out chains across the savanna somewhere because Rossi et al chuck their free chains away every 50 miles and everyone wants to copy that. And we end up with some kind of arms race to try and make a 50 mile chain last 20,000+ without visibly protecting it. It's kind of ironic really that a lot of modern bikes have exposed chains hidden behind stuff like exhausts / suspension / luggage etc to the point where you can't see them anyway, but rain and grit can still get in to wear them out. It really is the worst of all worlds.

How much power does using an O-ring cost you over a regular unsealed chain..? I Googled this, and although I couldn't find much in the way of cold hard numbers, I did find someone who dynoed a Honda TRX 450R quad both with regular and O-ring. The loss in HP (out of about 40 total) was around 2. A 5% loss in horsepower, but you gain less maintenance and hassle. That seems like a very reasonable tradeoff to me.

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Bruce Clarke - 2020 Yamaha XV250