Five cool tools to keep your bike in fine fettle from Birzman, Zefal, Knipex and Sinter

David9694 wrote:

The chain wear / speeds chart below was new to me. Legit, presumably?

I liked the Zefal pump - is this Z action thingey definitely promising NOT to unscrew removeable Presta valves?

The chain "stretch" chart reflects what manufacturers and various bike maintenance websites say. Some, of course, argue that you get better value by wearing the chain until it jumps off the sprockets or chainrings, although this seems to forget the cost of new cassettes and rings to go with the cost of the new chain. And the efficiency losses.

That tool, though, seems to use but two pins atween the rollers of the chain. This is generally regarded as inferior to methods that use three pins to take out any roller wear (which doesn't matter) from the chain "stretch" measurement. Google "Pedros chain tool" for an example.

For enormous amounts of well-researched data about chains, their wear and their lubrication, see:

https://zerofrictioncycling.com.au/

Some startling info to be found here about various chains and chain-related products. Suffice it to say that there's a lot of info about good and bad products, as determined by rigorous independent testing methods rather than by advertising and PR blurb.

Examples: KMC chains "stretch" much more rapidly than all other "quality" brands. Silca lubrcants are extremely effective and long lasting, making their seeming high price for a pack of their stuff irrelevant as the price per mile done to chain-too-worn is tiny in comparison to nearly all other lubricants. And a Shimano 12-speed XTR chain may be the most resilient and well-working chain ever made, even on 11-speed systems.

ZFC documentation and videos are long-winded.  But if you don't suffer from a short little attention span, well worth the effort to go through them all.

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Pumps that unscrew valve cores. Grease the threads that screw on to the valve; use a valve cap that has a slot in it to act as a screwdriver for screwing in (and screwing out) valve cores, just in case the grease doessn't work. (It always seems too).

Zerofrictioncycling really is high end, high end stuff. He seems to be saying if you're poddling around on your Tiagra 10s, keep all this stuff in proportion. A few take aways from my visit:

YBN should be in all our thoughts as a good chain manufacturer

He seems to like Silca, UFO and Smoove drip lubes. Hot waxing is the best method though - for those who can be arsed. 

wiping off excess lube post ride is a good thing (for the time/effort)

He claims that many 11 and 12s drivetrains are cheaper to run than 8 or 9s.

Chorus and Record are at the cheaper end of the cost per 10,000 km chart. Yet Record is a mediocre performer on his consolidated wear/speed chart. On 12s, YBN performs as well as Super Record. 

KMC 11s came out best on the strength to chain weight test, where there is a lot of variance; basic chain tensile strength was not very varied