Tracking bike component wear: gauge, app, Garmin or logbook?

The real cost is forgetting

A worn chain left too long takes an 80-euro cassette down with it. Ignored pads score the disc. The real cost of maintenance isn't the wear parts - it's the parts you ruin by forgetting to replace the wear parts in time.

And the problem is almost never technical. It's forgetting. You tell yourself "I'll check this weekend," and you remember 2,000 km too late.

So the question is how not to forget. There are four ways to track wear. None is perfect, and they're not equal.

The four methods, compared

Here's how they stack up on what matters: effort, how many components they cover, whether they work without special hardware, and what's left when you sell the bike.

"Follows the bike": the history exists independently of the device and can be handed to the buyer. Let's take each method, honestly.

The gauge: essential, but forgotten

Let's be clear: the 2-euro chain checker is still the best tool to measure chain wear. It measures the real stretch between links, and no app replaces that physical measurement.

Its flaw isn't accuracy, it's regularity: who pulls out the gauge every two weeks? And for everything else - pads, tires, cables, bearings - there's no universal gauge. You wait until braking feels weak, or the first suspicious flat.

How to check chain wear →

The head unit (Garmin): automatic, but locked in

Since June 2026, Garmin tracks component wear right on its compatible Edge head units (MTB, 540, 840, 1040, 550, 850, 1050): km per part, custom thresholds, alerts. That's good news - it proves wear tracking matters - and it's free and automatic.

But two limits. You need a recent Edge (from around 350 €, up to 700 € for the 1050): no Garmin, or a Wahoo, or just your phone, and it's not for you. And the data lives in the device: the history stays in Garmin Connect, but it doesn't travel as a document you can show a buyer when you sell the bike.

The Garmin announcement in detail (brújulabike) →

The synced logbook: wear follows the bike, not the device

The other approach is to take tracking out of the device. ChainLog connects to Strava or Ride with GPS - which already aggregate Garmin, Wahoo, Coros, Hammerhead, your phone, or any GPS that exports a track. And for those who use none of that, manual entry exists. So any computer works, or no computer at all. No dedicated hardware.

The mileage updates after every ride, across all your components - and all your bikes from one account. And when you replace a part, you log it (or photograph the receipt) and the counter resets.

Most of all, the history is permanent and portable: ChainLog generates a maintenance certificate that follows the bike to resale. That's exactly what tracking locked inside a head unit will never do - it's not its job.

• Cassette wear →
• Brake pad wear →
• Tire wear →

Honestly: mileage isn't wear

One thing all these methods share, Garmin included: they count kilometers, not actual wear. 1,000 km at 100 watts on the flat isn't 1,000 km in the mountains. Weight, weather, cleaning: it all matters.

So mileage isn't a measurement, it's a reminder. It tells you when to pull out the gauge. A rough reminder at the right time beats a perfect measurement you never take.

Is mileage really enough? →

The right combo

The best setup isn't one method against the others. It's: automatic mileage tracking for the reminder, the gauge when it pings, and a history that follows the bike.