A kilometre by taxi costs around two euros. But how much does a kilometre by bike actually cost? If you completely destroy your drivetrain within 500 kilometres - at least the cassette - as happened to our reader Alexander Klein, you will quickly have to pay 200 euros to replace it with current twelve-speed technology. Excluding all other costs, that's 40 cents per kilometre. With the depreciation of other parts, the final price per kilometre could even double. Just under one euro per kilometre? Yes, that's the reality. A reality. That's what happened to our reader with the E-MTB. But those who pedal with the sheer power of their legs, like most BIKE readers, get further. There are reports of riders who have ridden a Sram XX1 cassette for 20000 kilometres, with three chain and two chainring changes. For an XX1, that makes drivetrain costs of around 5 cents per kilometre, which sounds a lot friendlier. BIKE editor-in-chief Henri Lesewitz has also been torturing his XX1 groupset for over 10,000 kilometres and has only changed chains so far, despite plenty of mud and dust. So wear and tear in biking is a broad field.
What makes the difference and how can you tell whether a gearbox is durable? It is clear that the environmental conditions play a role. Our laboratory test experience to date is that wear is much slower without abrasive sand. So if you keep your drivetrain clean and don't use black sanding paste on your pinions, you'll get further. That is logical. However, dirt on the drivetrain cannot always be avoided when biking. In fact, it is the nature of the sport to dig through the dirt. It's also fun. It's just the drivetrain that suffers. And suddenly the gears slip. At the latest when you put on a new chain in the good faith that you are doing something good for your drivetrain. So dirt is one factor. Another is the gear being ridden. The fewer teeth in play, the more rapid the wear. Single-speed drivetrains with small blades are therefore wear accelerators. If you pedal a lot on the 12, 14 or 16-speed sprocket, the teeth melt much faster than in the mountain gears. And finally, muscle power. Or the combined leg and motor power. This is also a broad field. If all factors are unfavourable, the gearbox will deteriorate rapidly; if all factors are positive, the components will last much longer.
