A message from the editor...
Hello and welcome to the all new magazine but before we start if you only have a shaft drive bike then this is not the publication for you.
Thats right, "shock/ horror"- hold the front page! but here we are not interested in your agricultural machinery so you can walk away smugly congratulating yourself on your choice of motorcycle and find another way to spend your time other than making inane comments about how much time you have on your hands because you have a shaft drive. Perhaps start thinking of ways to save up for the cost of replacing your clutch because the whole of the bike needs to be taken apart to do so?.
So why do so many bike have chain drives anyway?
First and foremost chain and sprocket drives are very, very efficient
Shaft drives are not -
the action of transfering the rotary motion through 90 degrees is wasteful of energy and carries severe penalties in terms of the wieght and complexity of the mechanisms required to do that.
Shaft drives are heavy and complex and therefore represent a large "mass" which is not looked after by the suspension system - part of what is termed the "un-sprung mass" and therefore cannot be compensated for by that suspension system, so there are handling penalties too.
Shaft drives are expensive and yes they too can go wrong and are unsurprisingly very expensive to put right.
Maintenance - because of the configuration of many shaft drives even a reletively straight forward workshop task such as changing the clutch plates can mean the the whole bike has to be split in half to access this crucial mechanism.
Chains then... a bit dirty,a bit oily but efficient and (relatively) cheap!
Even so properly looked after they can give excellent long term service with few of the drawbacks of a shaft drive.
Now we've got that out of the way, the aim of this magazine is to help you get the most of your chain and sprocket set.
We'll be publishing examples, tips and case studies as well as features from some of our readers and oiler users from around the world.
Enjoy!
Nick Ibbitson
Welcome to the brand new issue of
Sprocket Science
- the magazine for
Chain drive bikes
So why chain drives?
NO
SHAFT DRIVES