How to check for bicycle cassette cog wear and when to replace cassette

We show you how to check your bicycle rear cassette for wear and when to replace cassette (also called a cogset, gear cluster, or freewheel). Check your cassette for wear whenever you do normal bike maintenance or repair. Remove and replace the cassette when you first notice wear. A worn cassette can increase chain wear and in turn result in wear to the intire drive train leading to poor shifting and poor overall bike performance. Indications of wear are similar whether you're working with SRAM, shimano, or cassettes from other manufacturers on a road bike cassette, mountain bike or trail bike. Remember, if desire to switch cassette to one with a larger cog to give you a lower gear for climbing, make sure your rear derailleur can handle the larger cogs. You may have to consider a long cage derailleur and/or changing the chainring size. To remove, replace and install your rear cassette on you road bike or mountain bike is not a difficult task. The method only requires a freewheel tool and chain wip to hold the cogset in place on the hub when removing the gear cluster. We address this in another of our videos.

Use of a cassette wear indicator for road bike cassette wear maybe helpful for early wear if used properly and is adapted to the number of cogs (i.e. 10 or 11 speed). We discuss use of a cassette wear indicator and conversion of a 9 speed chain wear indicator to a 10 speed indicator in more detail in another of our videos, although many bicycle mechanics suggest just visual inspection.

Chain wear indicator use
9 Speed cassette wear indicator use
How to build a 10 speed cassette wear indicator
10 Speed cassette wear indicator use