I somehow produce crazy chain wear.
I bought a used road bike with a completely new groupset and chain last December. By April, I was frustrated about why I couldn’t shift right on the cassette with DI2 - I thought it was a calibration issue. I brought it to a shop and was shown the chain was past .5 (not sure what tool was used) on the chain wear indicator.
I got a new Shimano HG-701 11 Speed chain installed at the local shop (I normally do it myself) and about 3 months later, my new chain is at .5 (I use a Park Tool CC-3.2) again! I can still shift fine, however.
(Edit: reading a guide Chad posted below, I realized that while I can push the tool into the chain at .5 it does not yet drop in there automatically - thus, assuming the tool is accurate, I have not reached .5 yet)
Some background - I don’t ride in the rain. Roads are fairly clean. Most of my rides are indoors with TR (3 rides per week on low volume, 1 per week outside if I can get to it). My bike is always very clean.
I’ve been using Bike Medicine Purple Extreme for the lubricant, suggested by the bike shop. I applied it for the third time today. I’ve never had issues with a super noisy chain since installing the new one.
My guess is I have done the equivalent of 12 weeks * 4 hours per week * 15MPH per ride = 720 miles equivalent combining indoors + outdoors on this new chain. I don’t think there’s any way I’ve done more than 1K.
I don’t think there’s anything special about my indoor setup, nor do I have crazy power (I don’t sprint, and even when I do I put out max 800W).
My cleaning process with this new chain is a combination of WD40 for degreasing, Park Tool Chain Cleaner with Simple Green/Water mix for scrubbing and brushes/wiping down the chain for further scrubbing before applying lubricant. I’ll wipe through the rear derailleur jockey wheels too. I put a drop of lubricant on each link, spin the cranks, wipe everything again later, but I don’t ride that day. As I said, the bike is never really that dirty.
How can I be so abusive on the chain?
The chain length is fine, there’s no position that causes extreme forward pull on the pulley; the bike shop set up the chain the exact length I do.
Photos of the setup:
