A black chain, cool!
The box says: 'superior friction resistance' and 'resists dirt accumulating', sounds good to me!
The chain itself looks plasticky, feels plasticky but not tacky with protective grease like all other chains I've bought, so I don't have to de-grease, dry and relube before putting on my bike. Just take off a few links and fit. Nice!
However, it is obvious from just a cursory examination that the coating looks rough. Inspection of the chain before fitting shows some bubbles in the teflon coating and poor coverage on some rollers
The instruction leaflet is a very basic A4 sheet, the diagrams are poor and the images of the snap link are bad photocopies. Not too worried about that, I'm not putting the leaflet on my bike.
IRD recommends Tri-flow lube and does not recommend waxy lubes as these will not stick to the coating. Tri-flow is a teflon based lube so that makes sense.
Fine-ADC recommend Purple Extreme (P.E.) and indeed a small sample bottle of P.E. was attached to the box. Use of this lube seems to be at odds with the info given on the P.E. web page which talks about their lube bonding to metal to prevent wear. Thinking about it though, this should be suitable for the chain as it seems that the pins are not coated anyway (there was no teflon on the pins when I took a few links out to get the proper chain length), so the inner surfaces of the rollers may not be coated either. It is these inner surfaces that need lube anyway so P.E. is as good as any.
To be on the safe side I've sent an email to P.E. asking about suitability on teflon chains. Here is part of the reply from Bruce:
'...Teflon is just no match for metal under pressure and motion. If you are going to need a lube anyway, what is the point of the teflon coating?...there is a company called Polymer Dynamics. They do industrial teflon coatings. What they suggest is to do the chain, cassette and chainrings as well. That way it is all treated in a compatible manner. At that point, there is no lube needed. It is also pretty expensive to do.
...I see no reason why Purple Extreme will accelerate the wear on most teflon coatings. What will tear it up is trapped grit acting like sandpaper inside the chain. But, that is a constant factor no matter what lube is used. Keep clean and prosper...'
''Keep clean and prosper", sound advice indeed, and equally suitable for any aspect of your life.
The chain comes with a silver 9 speed 'Snap Link II''. These look identical to SRAM 'Power Links' (apart from having IRD stamped on the plates) so be careful if you have silver 8 speed 'power links' in your kit.
A browse around their website shows that they do indeed have coated cassettes. These are PTFE not teflon, though this may be essentially the same thing but with a different name. No coated chainrings though.
The first ride with this chain was wet, but not particularly muddy or gritty. The chain was quiet to ride with and didn't skip on my part worn cassette. However, I am less than impressed with the teflon on the rollers, after only 10.5 km the rollers have already lost their coating!
If the purpose of the coating is to prevent mud sticking to the plates then it seems to do that OK, a rinse with a hose cleaned it up nicely.
If the teflon is to prevent wear in the chain, it's just not up to the job, after 10.5 km the parts that have most contact with the cassette and chainrings have lost the coating, and the inner parts of the rollers are not coated anyway so I now have a 'normal' chain with non-stick side-plates. This is all well and good but is not what I wanted from a teflon coated chain. The 'friction resistance' is now confined to the side plates, and while this does seem to help shifting front and rear, how long will this last?
I'm not impressed.
Had a close look at the chain, opened out some rollers and plates of the links I took off. It seems the teflon has been sprayed on and in places was quite thin, especially on the rollers. The inner surfaces of the chain have no coating at all, this, along with the quick wear on the rollers, means this chain is just coated at the side plates. As this is not the place that wear occurs, what is the point? It does help keep the chain clean, but many wax based lubes do that anyway.
I don't have any other info yet on this chain to know where in the manufacturers list it lies, is it low end or high end? At £26, price-wise it's comparable to mid- high end SRAM or Shimano chains but is it just a cheap chain coated with teflon and priced higher? After a close look at the IRD website, the chain seems to be near the top of their range for 9 speed, (they also do a coated 10 speed). I'm assuming the coating increases the price so the chain itself could well be bottom or mid range.
After a further 19 km of easy fireroad riding, no mud, no puddles, the chain looks like this:
As you can see, there is a fair amount of wear to the teflon on the high spots of the sideplates. This is worse on the inner aspect of the chain than on the outer. I'm putting this down to more force/contact needed with the front shifter for upshifts to middle and outer, than needed for downshifts. Pretty soon the teflon will be restricted to low spots and the inner plates.
I really am disappointed with the coating, I thought it would last longer than this. All this wear has been over 47 km in 3 rides, or 6 hours riding.
The chain coating isn't up to mountain bike riding, and I'd also assume not up to road riding. I base this on the wear being caused by metal to metal contact on the chainrings, cassette and front shifter, these being common to most bikes. Be interesting to see how one of these chains fares on a singlespeed.
I'm leaving it on the bike, after all, I still need a chain and this one pulls the wheels around well enough.
I'm giving it 3/10 only because it's a chain and it works, no chainsuck, no slippage.
However, I bought it mainly for the teflon-ness, and I believe this is it's main selling point, so it's the teflon coating that makes it different from 'ordinary' chains, but the coating is crap.
My advice is to leave the teflon for the frying pan, come to think of it, frying pan makers warn against using metal utensils on teflon coatings. I wonder why?
aj
25th October 2006
| 2Danger Enduro 3 MTB | IRD Teflon Chain | Fusion Raid MTB | |
| Deuter Cross Air backpack | Casco Passion Sport helmet | Howies NBL |