Rider's Blog #3: A cycling trip from southwestern Poland to Romania...

After completing a 600 km ride from Poland to Ukraine, I was unable to ride up on semi steep hills.

The chain I used was completely worn out (stretched by at least 0.75%). Whenever I put more pressure on the pedals, the chain would skip over the teeth in both the cassette and the chainset.

A quick reminder

My friend Hive account@danielw and I are doing a bike trip from southwestern Poland all the way down to Black Sea and documenting each step of the way. We believe that by sharing every twist and turn of our trip and how we dealt with it, we will deliver content, both informative and entertaining, that will serve as a traveler guide.

Trip highlights

at least a hundred kilometers ride during a cycling day,
rural roads,
free accommodation: camping, Couchsurfing etc.,
non-tourist destinations,
sharing the best tips and the best views;

Objectives

Our goal is to educate and inspire fellow travelers from around the world to get on their bikes. At the same time we would like to make it easy for beginners to jump onboard by showing that anyone can become a traveler.

Learn more

If you like to find out more and support us, go to our projects page on Fundition.io

Rider's Blog #3: Worn out chain

My bike was assembled nearly 10 years ago and despite the fact that it traveled thousands of kilometers, it was equipped with the original chain for the whole time. Honestly, I am amazed that it all kept working fine for so long.

Unfortunately the use of a worn out chain eventually led to a damage made to the cassette, the rear derailleur and the derailleur hanger. It was a process of not giving a damn about the condition of the chain, to the point where the whole mechanism could not work anymore. I also learned that a combination of an old chain and a heavy backpack during a ride can give birth to bruises and heavy wounds, especially on steep hills :) To avoid such occurrences, simply service your chain from time to time and replace it every few thousand kilometers.

The condition of the chain, cassette and rear derailleur can be seen on the attached pictures. The derailleur's cage is positioned is not positioned correctly due to the fact that the derailleur hanger is bent. The derailleur itself could have worked pretty well, except that the cogs lost all their teeth :)

Part replacement

Nearly all the worn out parts are replaced at this moment and now my bike is getting closer to being ready for a 1800 km trip from Poland to Romania that will be going on this summer. The cranks will have to be replaced soon as they never fully recovered after the 450 km cycling trip to Czech Republic last year and the teeth on chainrings are not looking well.

I am actually happy that I got a chance to replace the cassette because now the largest cog contains 32 teeth (an upgrade from 28) and now I can have a more pleasurable uphill. For the rear derailleur I stuck with SHIMANO Sora which has never let me down. This time however, I decided to go for a short cage version.

My current configuration

Part	Model
Frame	ACCENT via Montana 540
Fork	ACCENT Race Alu
Chainset	SHIMANO Tiagra FC-4700 Compact 52-36
Derailleurs	SHIMANO Sora RD-R3000-SS, SHIMANO Sora FD-R3000
Shifters	SHIMANO Sora ST-R3000 2x9
Cassette	SHIMANO CS-HG400-9 11-32T
Breaks	SHIMANO Sora BR-3300

What are your thoughts on the above configuration? How well do you think it will perform?

I am giving it a thumb up!

Thanks!

Would you like to help us get the necessary equipment to record our trip and spread the positive message? If you think cycling and traveling is a great way to spend time, you can give this post an upvote and resteem it so it reaches more audience.

Rider's Blog #3: A cycling trip from southwestern Poland to Romanian coast