Chainstay/drivetrain thoughts

You might recall that in my first ever blog entry I mentioned that I’d occasionally be pulling stuff out of the past and posting it here. The below was written and posted on the Serotta Forum ( http://www.serotta.com/forum/ ) a number of years ago in response to a thread about drvietrain stiffness and chainstay shapes and bending. It’s a bit long but I think you’ll find it interesting. Step into the way-back machine now……………….

 

Hey,

This is a favorite subject of mine.

I’ll say up front that I have no idea what bike you might like best. I’ll leave that alone.

First I’ll say something that you won’t hear from many builders…….curving or bending the stays into any configuration other than straight will make the stays flex more. There are very few absolutes in life but this is one of them. Curved stays flex more than the equivalent stay without the bend. They won’t flex a lot more……just a little. It depends on the type of bend and the degree of bend. One thing is for sure, the bent stay can never be stiffer due to its bend. The biggest reason to bend a stay is to allow for better clearances with tire and chainring. This is a bigger deal on mountain bikes than road but true nonetheless.

In any given material, stay diameter is the biggest factor in determining the stiffness. The bigger the diameter, the stiffer the stay. The problem is that if you make the stay bigger in diameter you run into clearance issues with both the chainrings and tire. So….. most stays are about the same in this regard. One can use huge stays (Big Leg Emma) but then you need big, deep dents to allow for the clearance room and the dents go a long way to negating the gains in stiffness made by the larger diameter stay.

There is a current trend in frame design to control BB flex with a big-arse downtube. This may feel like a good thing at first and it will certainly help with front derailleur rub but in the end it does not make for a stiffer bottom bracket. It’s often overlooked but it’s the chainstays that make the drivetrain stiff. A big downtube might be good for other reasons but it doesn’t do squat to make for a stiff drivetrain. A Slingshot frame is a great example of this. It’s simple when you think of it. The energy goes into the frame at the BB and goes to the rear wheel………and the only thing between the BB and the wheel is the chainstays. This is one of the big issues in designing a good Ti bike for a big or heavy rider. Titanium is much more flexible than steel. The way to make it as stiff as steel is to make the diameter much larger. But this has it’s own clearance issues. So they make the stays oval (making them stiff in the vertical direction and soft laterally…….not ideal) or they put in huge dents which has it’s own issues. So most Ti builders compensate for the wimpy stays with a huge downtube. And like I stated above this has little effect on true drivetrain stiffness. This is one of the reasons that many larger folks feel that Ti bikes don’t have the snap they are looking for and why it’s fallen out of favor with many racers.

When pedaling a bike out of the saddle chainstays are asked to do a number of different things. They undergo compression which is easy for almost any stay design to deal with as the loads are low. They undergo a torsional (twisting) load which most stays deal with fairly well regardless of shape. Larger diameter helps a good bit with the torsion. The other thing that happens to stays is that they see a lateral bending load as the BB is pushed from one side to the other. This is where ovalized stays can get in trouble. An oval tube has a major diameter and a minor diameter. There is a pretty good rule of thumb that addresses how an oval tube will flex compared to a round tube. The oval tube will flex about the same as a round tube that has the same diameter as either the major or minor diameters of the oval. In other words if you have an oval tube that is 30mm by 17mm in cross section it will flex about the same as a 30mm round tube in one direction and about the same as a 17mm tube in the other direction. So if you think of oval chainstays you in effect get the lateral stiffness of a rather small round tube.

For all the above reason I feel that a round stay is best. You get the most bang for the buck in ever direction. You get good clearances with minimal denting and you get a nice stiff stay and drivetrain.

Wow…………that’s more writing than I thought it would be. Thanks for sticking with me.

 Dave

 

 

I posted this article on 3/17/07. You can read the entire thread in context if you like here –

http://www.serotta.com/forum/showthread.php?t=27202&highlight=chainstay+stiffness

 

Until next time,

Dave

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2 responses to “Chainstay/drivetrain thoughts”

1. Fred Ury says:

   March 22, 2009 at 6:07 pm

   Dave,
   Tried to email you but could not get it to work. Question about DKS stays on the Hors Categorie. I have a Hors and love it. It is just a great bike. Also have a Richard Sachs and love that one too. But the Hors is my long distance ride. Do the stays in the rear wear out? Serotta does not have any and I do not see any on your web site. My mechanic thinks that thye do. On the forum the guys seem to feel that they last forever or at least longer than my riding career. Can you comment on this please. Thank you.
   Fred Ury

2. kirks says:

   March 22, 2009 at 8:29 pm

   The stays should last a lifetime of normal use. If you want to call I’ll be glad to talk with you about the bike.

   Dave