Chain rotation worth the effort and which chain is easiest to change yourself at home?

[i24]

There are two ways to wear out chain prematurely:

• Remove the OEM lubricant from inside of the rollers by soaking the chain in solvent, and/or washing it with mechanical assistance. Then fail to adequately re-lubricate it and keep it lubricated*. This is unlikely to happen if you never take the chain off the bike.
• Ignore all maintenance until the chain goes rusty. More likely to happen if you ride in rain and mud and park the bike outside.

If you prefer riding your bicycle to messing with dirty chains, or you attach any man hour value to your leisure time, leave the chain on the bike, clean the exterior with a brush and maybe some degreaser solution, rinse with water and re-lubricate with your lubricant brand of choice.

If you are keen to spend hours messing with dirty chains, then there are lots of posts on bikehub and youtube videos to give you suggestions on how to entertain yourself.

* If you do manage to wash out the OEM lubrication from inside the chain, the following are methods which may suffice to replace it:

• Soak and manipulate the chain in a bath of hot low viscosity lubricant, until it reaches inside the rollers, then let it cool down so lubricant thickens up and stays inside the rollers.
• Soak and manipulate the chain in a bath of lubricant which is mixed with solvent. Then let the solvent evaporate so that the lubricant thickens up.
• Lubricant with liquid lubricant and repeat at regular intervals, so the internals of the chain get enough lubrication. Chain saw "chain and bar oil" (https://www.takealot.com/ryobi-chainsaw-lubrication-bar-1-litre/PLID34170073) is probably as good as any other lubricant that you can use for this, and cheaper than most alternatives.

Have fun .... !