chain rollers
Yes or no?
My dr350 has bother an upper and lower chain roller. The upper one is so far away from the chain that you could well believe it would never make contact, yet when I bought my well used second-hand bike this part was thoroughly worn in every respect. The lower roller was siezed, the bracket on the frame it attached to bent, and the chain was just gourging a trough through the static plastic.
I replaced the lower roller (and straightened it's mount), but the cheap quality replacement vibrated loose and dissapeared. After this I did some thinking and decided the bike would work well enough (better?) without it. I did somewhere close to 20k miles on my trip to Mongolia last year without this lower chain roller, using just one chain and one set of sprockets.
But my question, is whether these chain rollers serve a purpose for a distance traveller? The lower roller on my dr350 would basically be in contact with the chain all the time at a normal tarmac cruise. Would this help prolong chain life by keep the chain taught and making it hug the front sprocket? Or would the friction and heat caused by the contact act to damaage the chain in someway?
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