Chainstay chain protector necessary?

[Patrick Moore]

It has been so long since I’ve owned a standard road derailleur bike that I don’t remember if chain slap protectors were normally used on road bikes.

My third-hand Roadeo does not have one but I see no chain damage to the stay; does this mean that, riding on pavement or, at worst, on firm dirt, that a chain on a 50/34 t ring combination is always high enough not to bang the paint?

I do hear the chain slapping the cage on roughish pavement descents, but again, no sign of chainstay paint damage.

Should I install one just in case?

If so, then next question: I’ve got some very old but NOS and rather nice real chromed metal cs protectors but they are so old that the glue has probably dried up. Can I attach to the chainstay paint with a strategic number of little contact cement points (applying cement lightly to both surfaces, let dry, press)?

Sorry, no twine or used tubes on this bike.

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Patrick Moore

Alburquerque, Nuevo Mexico, Etats Unis d'Amerique, Orbis Terrarum

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[Kim H.]

@Patrick, 

Regarding chain stay protection, I have personally purchased ISC Racers Tape a.k.a helicopter tape from Amazon and my favorite handlebar tape. 

I take my handlebar tape and wrap the length of the driveside chainstay. Then cut a piece of the helicopter tape the length of the chain stay and wrap it over the top of the handlebar tape. If any grease or dirt gets into it, it can be easily wiped off multiple times. Thus, one's anxiety is reduced to zero. 

Kim Hetzel. 

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[Brian Turner]

The helicopter tape (racer’s tape) should be enough protection on its own if you wanted a cleaner look. That stuff is pretty thick as-is. But, I also understand that it’s pretty cool to wrap with bar tape and twine (I do on most of my bikes, but admit that it’s purely aesthetic).

Brian

Lexington, KY

On Nov 16, 2025, at 1:30 PM, Kim H. <krhe...@gmail.com> wrote:



@Patrick, 

Regarding chain stay protection, I have personally purchased ISC Racers Tape a.k.a helicopter tape from Amazon and my favorite handlebar tape. 

I take my handlebar tape and wrap the length of the driveside chainstay. Then cut a piece of the helicopter tape the length of the chain stay and wrap it over the top of the handlebar tape. If any grease or dirt gets into it, it can be easily wiped off multiple times. Thus, one's anxiety is reduced to zero. 

Kim Hetzel. 

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On Sun, Nov 16, 2025, 7:49 AM Patrick Moore <bert...@gmail.com> wrote:

It has been so long since I’ve owned a standard road derailleur bike that I don’t remember if chain slap protectors were normally used on road bikes.

My third-hand Roadeo does not have one but I see no chain damage to the stay; does this mean that, riding on pavement or, at worst, on firm dirt, that a chain on a 50/34 t ring combination is always high enough not to bang the paint?

I do hear the chain slapping the cage on roughish pavement descents, but again, no sign of chainstay paint damage.

Should I install one just in case?

If so, then next question: I’ve got some very old but NOS and rather nice real chromed metal cs protectors but they are so old that the glue has probably dried up. Can I attach to the chainstay paint with a strategic number of little contact cement points (applying cement lightly to both surfaces, let dry, press)?

Sorry, no twine or used tubes on this bike.

--

Patrick Moore

Alburquerque, Nuevo Mexico, Etats Unis d'Amerique, Orbis Terrarum

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Executive resumes, LinkedIn profiles, bios, letters, and other writing services

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When thou didst not, savage, know thine own meaning,

But wouldst gabble like a thing most brutish,

I endowed thy purposes with words that made them known.

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[Kim H.]

@Brian,

I thoroughly agree.

Kim Hetzel. 

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[Nick A.]

Patrick - if you have cool chrome chainstay protectors, I say give it a shot. Worst case is it's a lame cleanup.

Nick A.

[Ben Miller]

Heavy duty double-sided mounting tape in the correct width for the chrome protector might make the future cleanup easy... or just prevent damage from a hard drying cement.

Ben

[Patrick Moore]

Thanks, Kim. I do have some tape like that you suggest, from Ortlieb, meant to protect painted or powder coated racks.

Thanks too to all the other respondents.

But one principal question remains: what is the likelihood of chainslap paint damage with an 11-32* and a 50/34 ring set? This if the bike is not underbiked on rough dirt and is ridden 99/100 on smooth-enough pavement?

* Soon, God willing, to be switched to a much more reasonable 14-32 cassette. Aside: Who needs a 50/11? That’s 124 gear inches!

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[Kim H.]

You are more than welcome, Patrick.

Kim Hetzel

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[Ben Miller]

But one principal question remains: what is the likelihood of chainslap paint damage?

GMBN Tech had a video showing how even clutched RDs still have some chain slap, so yeah it will eventually happen. Personally, I put some sort of clear "helicopter" style tape on my DS chainstay at minimum.

[Patrick Moore]

Thanks, Ben; so I ought to be prepared. It’s now a choice between my NOS protectors or helicopter tape.

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[Kim H.]

@Patrick, 

Chose wisely, Grasshopper.

Kim Hetzel. 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/CALuTfguuynzjjnN9audQnm4JDJ5ia6zf4DNNXcs9Z2tX7v3w0Q%40mail.gmail.com.

[Ray Varella]

Patrick,

The question shouldn’t be how likely are you to experience chain slap but rather how will you feel if the paint gets chipped. 

I’ve been using using clear helicopter tape on a few bikes and once it’s mounted I rarely think about it and only notice it during cleaning or maintenance. 

My vote is for the invisible force field. 

Ray

[Piaw Na]

Judging from the amount of black stuff I see on my Roadini's chainstays, I'd say that chainstay protectors are still necessary. They're cheap so why save the money?

[Patrick Moore]

Thanks, all. It’s either helicopter tape or one of the NOS chrome (or st steel? I bought them so long ago that I forget; they were already old then) with double-sided tape. I’m leaning toward the latter, eventually, though to celebrate the gossamer, pastel loveliness of the black Ultegra 8000 group, I might start with 2 layers of black electrician’s tape. Or heck, I have some hockey stick tape ...

[Peter Adler]

For a no-sticky-stuff option, LizardSkins makes a neoprene chainstay protector (in a couple of different colors and three different sizes*, depending on chainstay diameter) which wrap around the full chainstay and attach to themselves with a velcro strip. There's only blue and red on LS's site these days, but there used to be other colors. I've had a British racing green one (bronze green, in Raleigh lingo) that I got off eBay 10+ years ago; it's moved from one bike to another over the years. $11 MSRP.

https://www.lizardskins.com/product-details?h=neoprene-chainstay-protector-blue&c=bike_protection&t=chainstay_protector&v=0

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=lizard+skins+chainstay+protector

Peter Adler

who gets twitchy about applying adhesives that he might want to get off again in

Berkeley, CA

* Circumference 70-100 mm (small), 100-125 mm (medium) or 125-140 mm (large)

[Seung Vo]

On another note, does anyone here apply paint protection to their frames? For my carbon bikes I always purchased ride wrap which is tailored made 3m paint protection. With my recent Susie build I attempted to DIY and apply it myself, not perfect but has decent amount of protection through out the frame and fork. Is there any downside applying clear 3m on a steel frame? I’m fairly new to steel bikes so wasn’t sure if there was something else to consider. 

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[Piaw Na(藍俊彪)]

On Tue, Nov 18, 2025 at 8:31 AM Seung Vo <bshm...@gmail.com> wrote:

On another note, does anyone here apply paint protection to their frames?

On my son's Roadini, I used Racer Tape (https://amzn.to/4o67e3w) which is a lot cheaper than RideWrap. That bike gets locked up in the school yard and sees a huge amount of abuse --- I've had to replace the racer tape once on the fork. For my wife and my own bikes we don't abuse them, so we don't even bother. Why carry extra weight if you don't have to? My Co-Motion tandem/triplet/quad after 11 years of use and abuse looks like crap, but at 17000 miles there's no way we're going to be able to sell it for a substantial amount of money even if there was another dad dumb enough to want to ride a tandem with their kids. (Over the last 10 years I've only managed to convince two other dads to buy a tandem and one of them gave up without even riding 200 miles with his son --- there's a family down the street who bought a Co-Motion triplet independent of my convincing, and they tell me they have less than 1000 miles on that bike)

[Kim H.]

@Seung,

I have had no direct experience with the 3M protection tape itself. I do have experience with ICR Racers Tape.

I have used it previously on my 59cm Clem bicycle that I sold two years ago. I wrapped almost the entire bicycle frameset with it as the second owner. Just prior to handing the bike over to its new owner, I removed all of the Racers Tape. Needless to say, the frameset looked brand new after riding both on and off road for fourteen months. All the decals remained intact. No paint was removed. The tape served it's purpose very well.

I did the same treatment with my 52cm RBW blue Clem. 

Happy. 

Kim Hetzel. 

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