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Chain Covers Explained
If you transport your bike in a car, keep it in your house, apartment, or dorm room, or travel with your bike, a chain cover is a solution to a problem you did not realize you had.
A chain covers core functionality is to keep grease, dirt, and gunk off everything while protecting the bikes drive train. As an added bonus is the cover will keep the teeth of your front chainring and rear derailleur from ripping or scraping anything it might come in contact with. Think leather car seats, gear packed in your bike bag, or anything that might fall into when stored in your house.
It works by putting nylon or heavy-duty fabric cover around the cranks, chain, rear derailleur, and sometimes the rear cassette.
This cover keeps your bike drive train from getting grease and road muck on anything it could come in contact with.
Chain covers can be road or mountain bike specific and come in a few different styles. Here are some of the better products we have found.
EVOC Road Chain Cover
Our first chain cover is from EVOC and is for road bikes. If you are not familiar with EVOC they make some of the best bicycle travel cases and other first-class bike and outdoor accessories.
EVOC Road Chain Cover on a bike in a travel case:
My Testing & Experience
Below is a road bike chain cover gallery showing how it is packaged and the opened up, so you can see what it looks like out of the box. In the last image you can see how the cover folds over and the extra protection provided to keep the chain off the frame when the wheel is removed.
The EVOC road bike chain cover will fit front chainrings up to 53 teeth and should work with single, double, or triple chainrings. Once the cover is placed around the drive train velcro is used to close the cover and keep it securely in place.
The fabric is a heavy-duty nylon that is abrasion and tear-resistant and is coated in polyurethane.
You will notice something that looks like a handle on the right-hand side, this opening is for the pedal and cranks to go through.
Below is me installing the chain cover on my road bike which is a 2010(ish) Specialized Tarmac, 11 speed.
The crank side of the cover fits great, it is the rear derailleur side of the cover that has a little bit of trouble.
On my bike there is a rear cable that pops out, making it difficult to completely cover everything the way it was designed.
Below you will notice how the rear cable is not underneath the cover. Two of the images show the cover with the wheel on, the last two images show the cover with the wheel off.
Below are two images showing the cable tucked into the chain cover. In my opinion, it adds extra stress to the cable and cover.
If I were to use this chain cover when shipping my bike I would probably keep the cable out of the chain cover.
Key Specifications & Details
- Retail Price: $30
- Dimensions: 25.59 inches by 10.63 inches
- Official Product Page: EVOC Road Chain Cover
- Evoc Item Number: 100518100
EVOC Mountain Bike Chain Cover
Now we get to the EVOC chain cover for mountain bikes. As you can see the front of the cover is not as tall due to the fact that most mountain bike front chainrings are smaller.
My Testing & Experience
So to see exactly how well the EVOC MTB chain cover works, I ordered one and paid for by me. I have traveled twice with my Mountain bike, once to the Butte 100, and once to the Leadville 100.
The first set of images shows the chain cover in its original packaging and then when I opened it and flattened the cover out.
The last image shows the velcro straps, the fold that wraps around the chain, and the protective fabric that goes between the chain and the bike frame.
Here is the chain cover on my Yeti SB 4.5 full suspension bike. I think I have 32 teeth on the front. Evoc says the cover is compatible with a front chainring up to 38 teeth.
The first two images show the cover on the bike with the wheel on. As you can see, it will fit but it does not cover the rear cassette.
Next I put the cover on with the wheel removed. This is most likely how you will be using it. Rear Wheel removed and in a travel case. For my bike and drive train everything fit nice an snug.
Key Specifications & Details
- Retail Price: $30
- Construction: Heavy-duty nylon coated with polyurethane. Abrasion and tear-resistant.
- Dimensions: 25.59″ by 10.63″
- Official Product Page: EVOC MTB Chain Cover
- Evoc Item Number: 100519100
SCICON Chain Cover
The SCICON chain cover or “gear bike cover” as they call it, is strong durable nylon that will cover the front cranks, chain, rear derailleur, and cassette to protect your car’s interior or gear inside of your bike bag.
The chain cover uses a hook and loop, read velcro, fastener to keep the cover on and in place.
Not sure how big of a front chainring it will fit or how well it will fit a mountain bike or road bike.
If you are not familiar with SCICON they make some of the best bike travel bags and work with some of the best cyclists in the world.
SCICON Rear Bike Cover
This option is a little different from the others in that it covers the entire rear wheel and drivetrain.
M-Wave Rotterdam Chain Cover
The M-Wave Chain Cover option could be the best budget entry on this list.
We were not able to find lots of information about
My Testing & Experience
To see what the M-Wave as all about I ordered it from Amazon, the images below show what it looks like packaged and then when the cover is opened up.
My first impression is that the cover is much larger and will have plenty of size to cover the bikes chain, front cranks, rear derailleur, and cassette.
After opening the package it was time to test it out. The instructions that come with the chain cover are on the back side of the blue product card. No words just a series of pictures showing how to put the cover on. For me they were fairly simple to follow.
The material is not as strong and heavy duty as the EVOC material and the zipper is not the highest quality, but the cover does work well. I suppose at this price point the materials used have to be at a little lower quality.
Key Specifications & Details
- Retail Price: 24.29
- Dimensions: 16″ by 12″
- Official Product Page: Could not find one
- M-Wave Item Number: 122400
Interested in Cycling, Running, Web Design, and reading reviews of products I will never buy. If you see me looking at my phone I am probably playing Pokemon Go.
To the person who stole my Fitbit, let’s keep it up. We had a great July, now is not the time to lose momentum.
