A customer asked me to leave his chain 'a little dirty' for better shifting

This older guy came into my garage last week for a tune-up on his vintage road bike. When I got to cleaning the chain, he stopped me and said, 'Leave a bit of that old lube and grime on there. It works smoother for me.' He argued that a totally clean chain on his old Campagnolo setup would skip for the first 20 miles until it wore in a fresh coat of wax. I've always preached a spotless drive train, but his point about break-in time on certain old components made me pause. Has anyone else run into customers with specific 'dirty chain' preferences, or is this just a quirk of old Italian gear?

3 comments

3 Comments

clairec782mo ago

Yeah, I've heard that from a few guys with older setups too. The break-in period is real.

zarap149d ago

Patricia's method of just letting it run for hours is exactly what I did with my old Technics SL-1200. After about 40 hours of continuous play, the soundstage really widened and everything felt more natural. I think @patricia42 is totally right about that bass filling out once everything settles in.

patricia422mo ago

My old turntable sounded flat for weeks. I just let it run with a cheap record on repeat when I left for work. After maybe fifty hours, the bass filled out and the highs stopped being so sharp. It was like the whole thing just relaxed and opened up.