TL;DR: Keeping an unworn chain on your bike is important.

I can't speak much to bike chain quality, but 15 years with one chain seems kinda exceptional. I am also relative child still, so I may just not have been alive to experience chains that last that long. Chains are tested by measuring the distance between links with a tool[0], or by checking to see how much wiggle room your chain has between links when it's on the largest cog[1]. If the distance is too great, that means the chain has "stretched" (which is a bad word for it - the pins that hold the links of your chain together wear, and the distance between each link grows, so nothing has actually stretched). Worn chains usually also start to cause wear to your cassette and cog, so getting them replaced can be important. Make sure to maintain your chain by keeping it clean, adding lubricant once in a while, etc.

[0]:http://pardo.net/bike/pic/fail-004/18164_061544.jpg [1]:https://cyclingtips.com/2016/09/how-to-check-for-chain-wear-...

I gave it away to a friend and in the chain was stretched. He had to change it as well as the cassette but still...I probably had to change it 5 years ago. That is not 2 years.

Here in Amsterdam, you can either buy a cheap Chinese made bike which breaks down often or an expensive but reliable Dutch bike.

Needless to say, both are likely to get stolen within the first six months. ;-)

Why are bikes still getting stolen? So many bikes are stolen that you'd think the market for stolen bikes, and parts, which can't be THAT huge, would be saturated.

There was a weird case in Toronto Canada - if your bike was stolen in the city, it probably ended up in the possession of one particular guy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/21/world/americas/21iht-canad...

There's a demand, so there's a market. The problem is other people buy stolen bikes. I would also call those thieves, even if they don't do the stealing by themselves. As long as one buys something without original papers, they support the guys who do the stealing itself.

PS: 2 of my bikes were stolen.

I have no papers for the bike I bought brand new at full retail from a bike shop. Who keeps "papers" for a bike?

They probably just mean proof of purchase. The other important bit is the serial number (analogous to a car's VIN), often found under the bottom bracket.[0] You can (and should) register it with the local police, and there are a few online registries too. It's not an effective deterrent[1], but it's better than nothing. (I've had a bike returned to me because I registered it. That was before I learned to always use Kryptonite U-locks.)

[0] https://bikeindex.org/serials

[1] Wrapping your bike in tape, or otherwise making it look like a POS, is the way to go if you live in a theft-heavy location.

Yeah, I didn't keep any paperwork or proof of purchase unless it's in a random box of junk somewhere. It didn't even occur to me to do so. I probably kept the sales papers for a little while in case I needed it for a warranty claim, but if I have them now, I don't know where.

> always use Kryptonite U-locks

Don't. My bike was stolen by rapidly sawing (dremeling?) through a Kryptolok in broad daylight in a place with some of the most heavy law enforcement presence in Europe. Their locks are much weaker than their marketing.

Kryptonite are plenty strong, they are a good deterent, but not theft proof by any means. I've talked with people who's job was to cut bike locks. It was generally something like cables, 15 seconds. Offbrand u-locks 45 seconds and 1/3rd of a cutting wheel, name brands minute in a half and a cutting wheel. Then the "new york style" heavy ulocks were on the order of 5 minutes and 3 wheels.

Certainly there are bigger cutting discs, if you are willing to make a bunch of noise and sparks you can cut them more quickly.

Sorry to hear that. It's the strongest lock I've come across[0], but yea, once power tools come into play I can't imagine much of anything standing up to metal cut off grinder. What do you use now to secure your ride?

[0] http://www.kryptonitelock.com/content/kryt-us/en/products/pr...

What locks are stronger?

Well, not you? The receipt typically has the frame number and it's your proof of ownership.

You should keep it just so you can get your money back from insurance if it is stolen..

I never even registered my bike for insurance. It didn't occur to me and I'm not sure it really crosses the threshold of value/hassle for me.

The bigger point is that it's unreasonable to paint all people who buy used bikes without papers as supporting bike thieves. Anyone buying my bike would not get paperwork with the sale, but the bike is not stolen.

> The bigger point is that it's unreasonable to paint all people who buy used bikes without papers as supporting bike thieves.

It's absolutely accurate to portray them that way; sure, there are some used, no-papers bikes that are not stolen, but people willing to buy such bikes are what creates financial support for bike thieves, since all stolen bikes sold meet that description, and if people weren't willing to buy bikes in that condition stolen bikes couldn't be sold.

I've had a bike stolen where the frame manufacturer offers a simple online service to report a bike as stolen. There is zero excuse for anyone buying it to not check the number that is engraved onto the frame, not to mention with police who similarly have the serial number in a database.

Imagine if people had to drive around in creaking beater cars with leaking roofs because you couldn't store anything nicer anywhere but a garage with surveillance, and even then if someone finds out you have a nice car in a garage, there will be a breakin. That's pretty much the situation with bikes, and police simply shrug at what in most cities is very much organized crime and a huge quality of life issue.

> but people willing to buy such bikes are what creates financial support for bike thieves, since all stolen bikes sold meet that description

All stolen bikes also have two wheels. I guess buying a bike with two wheels also creates a market for stolen bikes?

This is ridiculous. No one without papers can sell a bike according to you. I get that bike theft is a problem but you don't solve it by blaming innocent people. A lot of legitimate bikes are sold without papers.

That's like asking "Why are people still manufacturing bikes, you'd think everyone who wants a bike would have one by this point". Bikes generally have shorter lifespans than people, and we're also making new people-who-want-bikes all the time.

I'm guessing that it's more like people are getting them stolen regularly. What I don't get is why the bottom of the pyramid (cf other branch of this thread) doesn't fill up.

Because people who possess stolen bikes are just as vulnerable to bike thrives as everyone else. If only non-stolen bikes got stolen, the pool of people willing to buy stolen bikes would probably not support any significant level of theft for very long, but that's.not how it works.

I think it's in part because they are their own getaway vehicles. And they're often parked outside, so you don't have to break in to anything.

people whose bikes get stolen need new ones

That would only make sense if Schwinn was stealing them.

I steal your bike, and I sell it to my buddy who himself lost a bike to a thief.

That's a pyramid scheme, to which my original point applies specifically.

It's not a pyramid scheme, because people who buy stolen bikes are also subject to having their bikes stolen. Pyramid schemes are acyclic, the market for stolen bikes is not.

How so?

The bottom of the pyramid should fill up with stolen bikes faster than the bikes rust out. Although I guess with 13M more births than deaths each year, there's 13M more potential outlets for stolen bikes. My guess is that most of those buy new or unstolen used, but with only 1.5M bike thefts a year, I may have just data'ed myself out of my OP! (All data for US 2015)

Same in SF. I carry around a lock that looks like it could have been used to anchor the Titanic.

Depends on the bike, but can be true. Fifteen years ago you might have had 7 cogs in the back, and today you can have 10 or even 11. Which means chains are a little thinner, to accommodate the extra gears.

Also, depends on mileage not years--an old, unridden bike will be fine. You can usually get ~3k miles from a chain without having to change the cassette (the cluster of gears in the back). If you let the chain go too far, it stretches, which wears the cassette out more quickly, then you need to change both. You can judge chain wear objectively by measuring the distance between chain links.

My daily bike doesn't have have indexed gears (it doesn't click when you shift), which will last longer. I use fairly cheap chains/cassettes, and just replace both every 10k miles or so. Simpler.

> Which means chains are a little thinner

As I understand it, chain stretch is not due to the links stretching. Instead it happens because the rollers wear down and get thinner. And I don't see any reason the rollers need to be different on 10/11/12 speed chains. So if newer chains wear faster, isn't it something else like materials?

It wasn't mileage. I was a more frequent biker back then. I'll get one of those measuring tools and learn how to use them. Otherwise it'll be 2 years again after this season.

A ruler works great: https://cyclingtips.com/2016/09/how-to-check-for-chain-wear-...

Modern bikes have a greater number of gears on the cassette on the back wheel, which in turn requires a thinner chain. Thinner chains wear quicker.

It’s one of the reasons hub gears (or, for the true hipsters as the stereotype goes, a fixie) can be so completely bombproof - the lack of dérailleur gears means the chain can be made much heavier duty & lasts much, much longer.

That said, your mountain bike probably did have quite a bit of chain wear, it just hadn’t reached the point that the chain had started to skip. How many gears did it have on the cassette?

Chains might not be what they used to be but the multi-geared sprockets with tight tolerances definitely aren't. It's cheaper to change the chains sooner than to wait until they wear out your sprockets badly enough that you can't fit a new chain on it and need to change both.

2 years of life out of chains sounds reasonable to me if you drive a lot. Exposure to dirt, salt (from de-icing), moisture, etc can shorten the life of your chains. Keeping them clean and well oiled will make them last longer. And using quality chains in the first place, your bike might have come with cheapo chains.

I'm up to 900km (559miles) per year again. It this "a lot"?

I look to replace chains at about 1-2k miles in winter, or 2k+ in the summer. Ymmv.

Honestly, unless you're on a 11sp, chains are cheap compared to any of the other parts.

When I was cycling 3000km/year, I replaced the chain every couple of years.

But it seemed to depend massively on how careful I was with cleaning, and where I was cycling. 99% on roads, with regular lubrication, and the chain lasted ages. Then I moved house, and cycled the same distance, but on gritted paths, and more often in the rain. Chains could be ruined very quickly if I was lazy, and didn't clean off the mud and grit.

2 years times 900 km sounds like a short-ish but reasonable life for chains.

OK. Guess thats how it is. Thank you all.

600 miles a year is relatively low. Most people replace chains around 1500-2000 miles but it can really vary.

If the machine doesn't have very many miles on it, it doesn't need a new chain unless it's terribly corroded or somehow damaged. If you get a new chain on a low-mileage bike, you will not need to replace the cassette/freewheel as well. If it's something with some miles on it, best bet is just to go for the whole drivetrain at once (chain rings, cassette, chain). I also used to be a bike mechanic. It's crazy to see the electronic shifting on high-end road rigs. Impressive, but crazy.

For mountain bikes and race bikes, this might actually be true. I used to have an MTB with stainless steel sprockets. Never needed to change them. Nowadays, they are mostly aluminium, I think. Furthermore newer bikes have more gears typically. The rear cassette used to be 7 speed, now 10 or 11 is not uncommon. This means narrower chains. Also chain may be lighter now, especially the high-end ones.

Lighter bikes are definitely more fun to ride, but probably at some cost....

You can still get 6-7-8 speed rear cassettes (which use a common 6-7-8 speed chain size) if you're worried about chain durability and don't care about the extra range. In general 10/11 speed parts are still more expensive than 6/7/8 or 9-speed parts.

The great thing about 10/11 speed cassettes is that you can go single on the front end. I did that three years ago, and man is it better.

So I sacrifised the very highest and the very lowest gear compared to my old 3x9, but this thing never drops the chain off the front end, there is no front derailleur that always gets bent and fails to shift properly, and there are no awkward momentum-bleeding crazy shift-down-one, shift-up-the-other moves. And you save money, weight and complexity, meaning less maintenance and less failures.

> The great thing about 10/11 speed cassettes is that you can go single on the front end. I did that three years ago, and man is it better.

Well, maybe if you live somewhere pretty flat. Or are willing to give up some high-end range (>25 mph). 10/11 speed cassettes generally only have a few teeth wider range than a ~7 speed, for example (e.g., you can get a 13-28 7-speed and the bigger 11 speeds are 11-32 (road)) . Mostly, the jumps are just much closer together, which makes for a smoother shift and easier to find a comfortable gear at a given effort.

> So I sacrifised the very highest and the very lowest gear compared to my old 3x9, but this thing never drops the chain off the front end, there is no front derailleur that always gets bent and fails to shift properly, and there are no awkward momentum-bleeding crazy shift-down-one, shift-up-the-other moves. And you save money, weight and complexity, meaning less maintenance and less failures.

Yeah, there are definitely some benefits! In my area (Seattle) with my level of fitness, I'm a fan of 2x front cogs.

Yeah, I don't know about road bikes, I run a 10 speed 11-34 MTB cassette in a low-end downhill rear derailleur (Shimano Zee). My area is not exactly flat, I guess I make up for it by being an old squats addict. It's good enough for light trail use for me, even with two kids in the bike trailer.

Yeah, 11-34 is a bit wider and you probably aren't trying to push 25 mph on a MTB :-).

I wouldn't care if the chain is heavier. The scary stories I heard from what happens if the chain falls apart are enough for me. I would even pay more. No problem.

However, when I asked the guys in the shop, they had nothing like that.

I've had a chain break once in probably 30k miles of riding, and only because I'd monkeyed with it (taken links out when converting to 1x7 speeds). Pros put unreal amounts of torque on equipment that's crazy light, and their chains break very rarely. Not something I'd worry about.

Pros also get their chains changed as frequently as they want. I doubt any pros are riding 2000 miles per chain like plenty of amateurs do.

Also the biggest pro I've ever heard of is Magnus Backstedt at 6'4 and 207lbs. He's a GIANT compared to everyone else on the pro tour. "Big" Tom Boonen only weighs 180lbs and Lance Armstrong was 165. Pros have really good power for their weight, but in absolute numbers the power isn't that excessive.

If you want to see people who are tough on gear, you have to look at track riders. That's where a 1400W rider isn't anything special and 1800W+ starts to become impressive. Also since they're on single gear bikes the torque they put down at low speeds to accelerate is absolutely insane.

The chain and gear sprockets are progressively getting thinner in pursuit of lower overall bike weight. This is driven by the racing side of cycling, similar to automotive tech coming through R&D in Formula 1 racing.

A lighter bike is nicer to ride. It is less effort to accelerate from a stop and a 1kg difference will be noticeable when riding up hill.

The trade-off of the thinner drive train components is that they will wear and stretch faster. Continuing to use a stretched chain will cause accelerated wear on the sprockets. When the sprockets get too worn the teeth become very pointy and chain will start to skip on the rear cassette or drop off the chain rings.

Track bikes (fixed gear, single speeds) are the exception, as the chains are still very thick as they are designed to take more force from acceleration from the track sprinters.

15 years ago it was likely a 7 speed. In that same space todays bikes have 11-12 gears.

Additionally chains and gear teeth can wear together way past the designed for tolerances. So over 15 years things might work, but then you have to replace the chain, cassette, and chainrings. Replacing any piece alone would likely make things MUCH worse.

Generally if you ride daily it's worth replacing a chain annually, or at least checking for "stretch", which is actually wear. Chains are MUCH cheaper to replace than chainrings and cassettes.