How often should you clean and lubricate a bicycle chain?
Reviewed
The short answer
every 2 months
Every two months for commuting in mixed weather. A wet ride or a gritty towpath moves that forward on its own.
The chain tells you when. A dry one squeaks under load and shifts reluctantly.
Why a clean chain lasts longer
Grit mixed with oil grinds the pins and rollers from the inside. The chain lengthens as those pins wear, and a long chain chews the cassette teeth it no longer matches.
Replacing a chain is cheap. Replacing a chain, a cassette and chainrings together is not, and that is the bill a neglected drivetrain writes.
Cleaning without stripping
A rag and a stiff brush remove most of what matters. Heavy degreaser pulls lubricant out of the rollers as well, so it belongs to an occasional deep clean rather than the routine.
Dry the chain before oiling. Oil on a wet chain sits on water instead of metal.
The steps
Backpedal the chain through a rag
Two or three turns lift the loose grit before anything else touches it.
Brush the cassette and jockey wheels
Both collect a black paste that the chain picks straight back up.
Apply one drop per roller
Turning the cranks slowly keeps the count honest.
Wipe the outside dry
Oil left on the side plates only collects dust.
Common questions
Wet lube or dry lube?
Wet lube stays put through rain and suits winter. Dry lube attracts less dust in summer and needs reapplying more often, which is the trade either way.
How do you know a chain is worn out?
A chain checker tool reads the stretch in seconds, and most riders replace at 0.75 percent. Lifting the chain away from the front chainring by a few millimetres is the rough version of the same test.
This reminder, in IAlwaysForget
« clean and lubricate the bicycle chain every 2 months »
- Understood as
- Recurring reminder
- Comes back
- every 2 months