pic: 4587 Wheel and Chain in Tube Drive

[notmattlythgoe]

Originally Posted by Rob Stehlik

Cool design! When our grade11 students showed me their preseason drive train, I envisioned something like this, but they were reluctant to hide the chain, and probably for good reason. Repairs if something goes wrong with the chain would be difficult. Also, I would be wary of using these wheels in a drivetrain, especially one like this where replacing them would be a bit of a challenge. We ordered some samples, and they are tiny! The narrow width means the tread will wear pretty quickly.

Has anybody run these wheels on a drive train before? I'd be interested to see how quickly they wear.

I'm not sure hiding the chain is as big of a deal as you are making it out to be. Several teams have run chain in tube for several years now with good results. We did it this past year (of course no defense so not a lot of stress) and had no problems. In the 4 years that we've run #25 chain on our drive train we have never broken a chain nor had significant chain stretch.