Chain Wear

[AlfaFoxtrot]

I have a lovely old Bob Jackson road bike, all works fine at the moment. A friend recently borrowed a 2012 aluminium/carbon bike for a test ride, and I had a quick go. The first thing that surprised me was that it isn't actually that much lighter than my current frame (apparently mine uses some clever double or triple butting so that it's only got lots of steel where needed). The other was how shiny the chain and deraillieurs were!

Being a road bike and having mudguards I've not had reason to clean it for a while now, but I have just ordered a couple of brushes, some degreaser and one of those fancy chain cleaning baths to clean up the chain and sprockets a bit. I regularly oil the chain, but have read that you also need to keep it clean otherwise the grit and crap collected off the road will prematurely wear the chain and sprockets (bit noobish to not consider this!). How often do people here with roadbikes clean off the chain? Commuting in London I'm oiling it every couple of weeks, probably covering ~50miles a week.

I also have a mountain bike at home where the chain slips if you push too hard on the pedals. So that will need the chain and/or sprockets replacing which is fine (as it's done a lot of miles!), but I'd also like to get some new wheels for it at the same time. Not having had to replace these before, I'm slightly confused as to how you do it... Looking on Wiggle you can buy a pair of wheels, neither of which has gears on it. Is it straightforward to then attach an appropriate cassette to it, or do you have to get a compatible pair?

[Catchme]

You need to know the spacing between the dropouts - there is a standard width, which is about 130mm or so (taking an 8, 9 or 10 speed cassette). If you are buying new wheels, get some with the spacing between the axle lock nuts that reflect the width of the dropouts. If you need to, get some axle spacers. Otherwise, you should be good to go.