UKC

Just a musing and perhaps a warning to others.

I’m up around Pately Bridge for 5 days mountain biking on the grouse moors, which by the way are on fantastic well maintained bridleways. Fettling the chain last minute before setting off, the gauge said that it was warn so I fitted a spare new one. 100 yards into the first ride I had terminal chain suck and realised I should have changed the chainring as well as the chain. I had spare chainrings at home ( this is an EMTB with a Bosch motor) so I drove the 60 miles home and fitted a new chainring. 
I don’t know if anyone has guessed but 100 yards into the next days ride and the chain is jumping like mad on the rear cassette. Despite being a common Shimano cassette the local, quite large, bike shop had nothing in stock. 
So, I’ve done three days climbing on only four non slipping cogs. The moral being, “one off all off”. 

If I was on a 5 day trip I'd just have carried on with the worn chain and done all the fettling at home. I don't know if being an ebike makes much difference but a slightly worn chain doesn't suddenly become a liability on an analogue bike and five days more wear is neither here nor there.

I thought the point of those chain wear doofers was that they let you replace the chain before it wore the teeth into a profile meaning you didn't need to replace everything with the chain? Or at least, not every time you replaced the chain.

Can’t remember if this is the second new chain on the same cogs or not. Probably is. I’m usually a bit anal about changing chains as I always carry spare quick links and have given them out to three people over the years who had a snapped chain. 
I did do the fettling at home the night before the trip and thought a new chain was a good idea. 

You used to be able to make rear cogs live indefinitely by changing the chain regularly. Perhaps not so much these days with less robust modern equipment.

I usually go by 3 chains to one cassette and three cassettes to one set of chain rings.

Works with my road bike, not sure about my new MTb with a 1X set up. Think I might be changing the chain ring more frequently.

I think part of the problem is the chains getting narrower. Mine is 11 speed but new bikes seem to be 12 speed. My local bike shop says that a lot of people in his MTB club are reverting to 10 speed due to execrated chain wear. 

Another example of regressive progress. 12 speed I ask you!

I've been using a chain wear doofer, and used the same cassette and front ring for ages while using quite a few chains, until I needed new rear cogs and front rings. 

It is possible to rotate the front rings to get more wear from them, until they eventually suck whichever way around they're used.

Still 9 speed and triple for me, the parts are really cheap, and 'good enough' for pedalling along.

Not brilliant on double or triple set ups.

You still can if you pay attention to the detail.  
 

OP You broke the no last minute fettling rule.  Unexpected last minute fettles shouldn’t arise if on top of maintenance.

Also not so much on modern 1x setups where the chainrings often depend on a certain amount of offset to have a reliable chainline. 

Isn't this the perfect excuse for a trip to the Dales Bike Centre in Grinton to sample their magnificent cakes?

I bought a chain wear checker - but the local bike shop pointed out this was a 2% checker. They suggested a ParkTool which is 0.5-0.75%. Apparently (which I found to be true) by the time it's 2% then you need a new cassette.

Not sure where Grinton is but we did a good cake sampling at Howstean Gauge. 

Guilty as charged. I just couldn’t bare to clean the chain when I removed it after a muddy ride and a new one was in the drawer. 

A word of warning for anyone in the Pately Bridge area, we had three rides starting up the nice bridleway from Bouthwaite but it had been completely trashed by a logging operation. One of those massive 8 or 10 wheeler things had widened the bridleway by 2ft either side and created 100 yards of 3ft deep muddy ruts where they had been loading. The trailer fully loaded with logs was rocking from side to side as the wagon slid down the path then half of the logs fell sideways on to the banking. There was no closure order and it’s going to take a lot of work to reinstate. Or probably not. 

I'm old school and use friction thumbies, so the ramps and things for slicker shifting aren't as critical, it's mostly been for my smallest ring though, it ended up as a row of points which worked in neither direction at which I bought a new one.

I think much can depend on what one finds acceptable, in the end, being functional or optimal.

Stif in Summerbridge might fix the bike 

https://www.stifmtb.com/

There is also Moonglu or Kirkham cycles in Ripon.

If you want a posh(ish) meal I'd recommend The Sportsman's at Wath

https://sportsmans-arms.co.uk/

I seem to recall there is live music at The Bridge this Saturday, so the outside bar and pizza oven should be working

Stiff the Santa Cruz shop in Summerbridge couldn’t supply a Shimano rear cassette which is pretty common on bikes today.

Re. the pubs, on  Tuesday night the Crown at Lofthouse, Sportsman at Wath and the Bridge Inn were all closed. Had to go to the Royal Oak in Pately Bridge and this is in July school holiday time with the area full of caravaners. 
I did consider the bike shop in Harrogate but decided to head home for the day where I had spares.

Thank you anyway for the reccomendations.