Rex: Glad you were able to finally track it down. It's interesting that the KMC that was years old & used outperformed the SRAM you had purchased new. Perhaps a bad chain? or bad batch? Unless the cost is silly expensive it may be interesting to try a new SRAM. Of course, you could also tell the shop your experience and come to some prior agreement on a return or exchange if a new one acts up like the one you've replaced. From the other responses, it looks like 9 speeds work better with same mfg chain & cogs.
At the risk of re-opening the debate about optimal number of speeds, my experience is all with 7 & 8 speeds. I generally use SRAM 8xx (whatever's on sale) chains in the $20 range. I've used cassettes by Shimano, Performance brand (maybe Sun Race?) and the Atlantis came with a Sun Race cassette. They've all worked pretty much the same, even with some of my goofy cog mixing'n'matching. The Shimano cassettes do last longer but there are few 8 speed choices these days. dougP On Dec 22, 4:35 pm, Rex Kerr <rexk...@gmail.com> wrote: > Ever since building up my AHH I've been struggling with mis-shifts and > noise in the drivetrain, details of which I've posted here a few times. I > tried everything I could think of... even took it to Riv HQ to ask for > help... everything that'd make it better would only make it slightly > better, and half of that was probably placebo. I'd tried everything that > came to mind, except for one simple thing [I'd already tried the complex > stuff first]... I didn't try this one simple thing because I didn't have a > compatible one in my parts inventory [yes, I have a parts inventory in my > home shop] to try, and didn't want to take one off another bike... So, I > suffered and suffered and lost the best ~1000 miles of my bike to this pain > [no idea exactly how many miles, no speedo]... I really should have just > bought another part, since it's a wear part and all, but whatever... > > So, last night while out cleaning the drivetrain (since it'd gotten > particularly bad on my last ride home, so bad that I almost wanted to get > off and walk home). I finally just did it... I was hesitant, because I > didn't want to put a worn one and wear out my other newer parts, but I > measured the other bike's **CHAIN** for wear, and it was within tolerance, > so I swapped them... IT'S SILENT NOW!!! I didn't miss a single shift on > the way to work this morning, and it was nearly silent!!! > > So.... question... how does a brand new PC971 chain perform so poorly? > I've never had such problems with SRAM chains before, and always preferred > them over Shimano chains. The one that I swapped was a KMC Z-9000 that I'd > purchased a number of years ago from a shop that was selling new OE pulls > for $4 (I wish now that I'd taken their entire inventory!! What a > deal!)... what could be wrong that would make it perform so poorly? It's > been a long time, so I probably can't get my money back from the LBS where > I bought it, but it'd be nice to know what to look for in the future! -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en.
