Ebike cassettes and chains

[georgehenry]

Well I use two bikes, one a hub powered bike and one a crank drive bike.

The transmission on the hub powered bike can be abused and lasts so long that if we all owned hub powered bikes there would be no discussion about chain, chain ring and cassette wear.

My crank drive Haibike Yamaha is a different story. I use it to commute to work and back with mostly off road route to work and 10 miles on the road home. The motor assists above the cut off.

If I was off road all the time I think the cassette would last a longer time as I would be using all the gears more and not so much top gear.

I use cheap (circa £17 Shimano Alivio HG400 9 speed rear cassettes with 12-36T: 12-14-16-18-21-24-28-32-36 gears. I got 1462 miles out of my last cassette before 12 tooth top gear started to show signs of of wear.

My longest lasting cassette reached 2200 miles. The shortest last winter only 770 miles but probably exacerbated by a slightly bent rear mech hanger.

I also use KMC chains.

I am now using a garbaruk 42 tooth narrow wide chain ring. I have been really impressed by this as it not only stops your chain ever coming off but seems very hard wearing and did not need changing when I changed my cassette and chain at 1462 miles.

As others have said it is always the top (12 tooth in my case) cog that wears out first. I have up geared my bike to allow me to use a 12 rather than 11 cog top gear to be a bit more resistant to wear.

I tend to only use eco in top gear to prolong its life, although this equates to 20/23 mph on the flat.

I consistently average 20mph for my 10 mile hilly B road return from work.

Having your gears well indexed is another important factor for cassette longevity.

 

[georgehenry]

In respect of out of warranty Yamaha parts/motor issues.

Bearing in mind that I wore out my first motors main bearing after 6000 miles and had a new motor fitted by my dealer free of charge under warranty right on the two year point. Great customer service from my dealer.

I thought I would just check with my dealer (ebikeshop Farnham) what my options are now that the bike is three and a half years old.

They told me that they now have Yamaha main bearings in stock and when they need doing the job can be done by them with a same day turnaround for £80.

They advised me that the main shaft on the motor is a floating shaft so it will have a little play anyway.

They said a new motor if required would be £650.

However hopefully the motor should last a long time and it is the main bearing that needs to be changed periodically due to wear.

 

[kingsknight]

So much useful information in here! Thanks for your replies! The long and short of it, it really depends on how you ride the bike? Most of my time is spend on the flat using tour mode.

I'm a big rider at 98kg and I do spend a lot of time stood up as I like riding that way so I think they will lower the life of the drive system!

I am going to report back on here when I need to change parts. I've pretty much replaced both my motorcycle and car with my ebike so I'll be covering about 100/150 miles a week so I'll be hitting my high mileage pretty quick!

 

[Simon Suster]

Great thread! I have a Bosch performance line and got about 4,600 miles out of the stock drive train. However it was skipping pretty bad and I had to grease it constantly. I replaced the whole drive train with a Sram front chaining, xt cassette and the KMC ebike rated chain, hoping to get 5,000 miles from it. I average about 130 miles/week.

 

[anotherkiwi]

Great thread! I have a Bosch performance line and got about 4,600 miles out of the stock drive train. However it was skipping pretty bad and I had to grease it constantly. I replaced the whole drive train with a Sram front chaining, xt cassette and the KMC ebike rated chain, hoping to get 5,000 miles from it. I average about 130 miles/week.

US or Imperial miles? </joke>

 

[Simon Suster]

US or Imperial miles? </joke>

Ah yes, I forgot where I was posting. Those would be US miles

 

[DynatechFan]

I often wonder if I am the only rider who does this but most of my bikes have 2 (or on my commuter 3) chains. They are all KMC split link chains, mostly Z8s (but most of my bikes are a few year sold)

When the chain is grubby I swap it out. Give the dirty one a good soak clean and lube (old Birdseye Gourmet aluminium fish trays are good for this) so its ready for next time. So much easier than trying to clean a chain on a bike

In my experience 2 chains will wear 1 cassette to the point it is ready to change - 2 worn out cassettes will mean 1 worn out chainset - time for a new transmission . . .

By swapping the chains regularly you spread that wear more evenly - if you wear out a chain and then put in a new one it *may* skip but will *wear* faster the second time around because cassette is already tiring

 

[Trevormonty]

I've thought of running 2 chains but decided against as found its best to replace chainring with chain on Bosch CX drive. With full size chainrings I'd be fine with it.

 

[Alistair Paul]

I've thought of running 2 chains but decided against as found its best to replace chainring with chain on Bosch CX drive. With full size chainrings I'd be fine with it.

I'm interested to read this thread, I have a Giant Quick E hybrid bike for commutng, it's also dongles. I've clocked up 850 miles, all on the flat and gear 10 (11T) is starting to slip. That's quite soon, but I am pushing with assist all the time.
I'm thinking of a bigger front chainring (from 42t to 48t) and a closer ratio cassette, something like 11-26. My thinking is I'll spread the wear across more gears when I maintain the speed and effort I want. Swapping between 2 chains is interesting I think I'll try that. See how that works and report back.