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  • One for tester.. how many of this mob's claims are true/bogus? Lots of funky equipment, lots of graphs - how much difference will their magic chains, etc. make?

    http://www.friction-facts.com/equipment

    It's tl;dr while I'm on the phone, but a back of a fag packet calcultion gives 6W total drivetrain loss for a clean, new, oiled roller chain based on 98% efficiency and 300W at the crank. It's really hard to halve the losses in a roller chain, so any claim to save you more than 3W can immediately be dismissed as marketing BS. I've already listed 3 of the 4 known methods of optimization, the last one is increasing the radius of curvature where the chain bends. For fixengers, that means about 1W saved by going from 44/11 to 64/16 (I did this calculation many years ago using software called Xchain or something similar, again I'm not at my desk), for derailleur users there is a small gain to be had from larger pulleys, but again no more than 1W. Ordinary nickel plated steel chain plus ordinary oil is already very good, exotic coatings and lubricants can barely improve on it when new, although some of them can make the "new condition" properties last longer they tend to do so at such a cost that in simple materials purchase terms you're better off replacing cheap chains frequently (see Dr Hutch)

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