multiple wheelsets & drivetrain wear

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by rek
Who here has a number of wheelsets that they switch around (i.e. a 'race' wheelset, and a 'commuting' wheelset, etc.) ?

I was wondering how much of an effect anyone has noticed with regard to chain wear. My thinking is that if one wheelset has a worn cassette, and the other one doesn't, switching from one wheelset to the other might aggravate wear on the chain and/or the non-worn cassette, and lead to poorer shifting performance, chain skipping, or chain suck.

Am I blowing this issue out of proportion in my mind, or is it a genuine concern?

This is a genuine concern if you are of the "ride it until it's dead" mentality. A worn out chain and a good cluster will not mesh properly (that;'s the accepted terminology, the gist of it is thta the chain won't stay in the right gear).

You're better of changing your cluster from training to race wheels if you want to wear everything out, or have two bikes, one for training and one for racing, and put all the new stuff on the race bike and rotate it down (I even have two pairs of shoes so I can have perfect cleats on my racing shoes).

Bike shops usually tell you to replace the whole lot, but it's an expensive exercise.

One thing that I found that really works is to just replace your chain much more frequently. It will still wear the cassets but if you combine lube and new chains it will take much longer. If the chains cost too much consider changing to a cheaper chain, possibly a sram PC-48 or simmilar.

I'm actually asking with regards to my mountain bike; I'm considering buying a cheap wheelset to mount slicks on (for use as a wet weather commuter), and leaving my current wheels for dirt use. I'm guessing the dirt riding wheelset will wear out way faster than the commuting set, hence why I asked.

I'm a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to shifting performance (and run a maintenance/cleaning schedule to suit), I generally want everything to run like a Swiss watch 🙂

I hadn't considered pairing a chain with each wheelset, I guess the SRAM chains (with the link thingy) would make life pretty easy in this regard. I guess it's either that, or keep a close eye on chain wear and replace them before they have a chance of wearing the cassette too much.

Since you are going to use the wheels for mountain biking and the other set for road use it makes it much more difficult. The main reason is because the wear is so different, road use is usually a more steady wear but MT. wear is more jerky. Meaning that when riding on a trail you don't just sit down and pedal you are constantly sprinting and accelerating.