Do you replace worn out rings on chainsets? Or bin the lot?

[ultrazenith]

What do other retrobikers do when one chainring on an otherwise perfecrly servicable retro chainset is worn out? Do you buy a new ring, which presumably is cheaper than buying a whole new chainset? Or do you bin it and fit a new one? If you replace it, what do you prefer to fit: aftermarket, or do you track down period correct original rings for it?

 

[mattr]

Depends on the costs!
Sometimes you can get a complete chainset for not much more than a couple of rings. I've done that with XT level kit. XTR, nah, i'll buy aftermarket rings (got a complete set and a new spider for my M950s for less than the cost of an outer/middle pair.)

And as for replacements, i usually go for a high end aftermarket, someone like TA haven't changed the design of some of their rings for a couple of decades....... (ok, they probably have, but not much!)

 

[hamster]

Replace with TA rings every time. It baffles me that people fit old Shimano rings, seeming as they have pathetic durability and lots of chainsuck problems from all those unnecessary shift ramps and pins.

 

[Titiritero]

Re:

If you are talking about retrobike cranksets, I try to find new Shimano chainrings for road compact cranksets.

The small chainring being steel and not used often rarely needs replacement. For the middle one, if it's BCD 110m and 5 arms, any small ring from a compact road crankset (until recently with the stupid asymmetric 4 arm design) will do. For the bigger ring (also 110 BCD and 5 arms), the big ring of cyclocross cranksets is usually available in 46T or 44T.

If you go for the lower range (Claris, etc.) not only can you get them cheaper (about 10 EUR per ring), but they also come in steel, which lasts about 5 times what aluminium rings last.

If the crankset is not in great condition, or from the lower range, I directly buy a new modern square taper crankset. Alivio, Acera and the likes can be had for about 35 EUR online. Heavy, but all rings in steel and option for chainguard if you need it for your commuter.

I avoid Octalink (small market share) and Hollowtech (does the same as square taper but costs 3x for the same thing).

Shimano produces the cheapest spare rings, but they seem to like to push people to buy full new cranksets, as their rings have minimal cosmetic differences but enough to make an XT ring incompatible in a Deore crankset and so on, BCD and everything else being equal.

 

[legrandefromage]

I stuck with 110bcd and its worked out well with, as written above, road going 110bcd for a while so theres plenty of stuff about and posh TA too if feeling frivolous. I dumped all the 94bcd stuff 5 arm stuff.

130 and 110 for road and am using external BB wherever possible

 

[Silvergoat]

Re:

Unless you just fancy a particular 'new' crankset, there's no point in the expense of that just to get the rings. The TAs and Stronglights are pretty good.

For the last 5 years, I've been running these silver 110 bcd cranks https://www.spacycles.co.uk/m2b0s109p30 ... ing-Cranks and swapping rings as required. I refitted two old Tioga rings out of my old parts bin after shearing 4 of 5 bolts and completely egg-ringing a 2.3mm thick stainless steel 50t Surly ring one day last summer. The Tiogas from back in the day were still very serviceable. I now dismantle the crankset every 3 months to clean and check everything. I rotate the rings round to the next arm on the crank when reassembling.

If I have the funds, I may well upgrade to a better crankset this year but I'm generally happy with the square taper/5 arm/110bcd setup.

 

[mdvineng]

130 and 110 rings. Mavic square taper bb's on most of my stuff except the 07 marin which has ext bb, which from an engineering angle, are compromised.

 

[catf]

am i the only one that usually mashes the tapers long before the rings wear out?

(honestly who ever thought of taperlock? it sucked then and it sucks now.)

 

[hamster]

Sounds like you don't tighten the crank bolts enough! I've only once had a crank fail, that was after fitting a Campag crank onto a Shimano BB.

 

[mattr]

am i the only one that usually mashes the tapers long before the rings wear out?

I'd have gone bankrupt if it was that bad. Even XT level aluminium rings last a year or so of heavy use.
Fastest i've killed chainrings was 5 months on the road. Managed about 12000 very hard km though. (i've bent rings quicker than that though, but thats a whole different issue!)