Shimano chain compatibility with Dyname 4.0

S13

Active member
Mar 1, 2021
231
135
NL
So here is a weird observation...
My Altitude A50 2022 came with the Shimano drivetrain, and ive always felt the drivetrain had a bit of vibration. I assumed it was just inherent to the Dyname design with the additional drive sprocket. Nothing too disturbing, but surely it never felt as smooth as a Shimano or Bosch motor.

Recently the wear on the 11-tooth motor sprocket became too much and i felt it was time to swap it out for a new one. This was after 2700km for all of you interested. When running the chain in reverse direction it was obvious the chain was also binding to the motor sprocket causing irregular jerkyness. This is obviously not how you would normally ride, but it goes to show that something wasnt engaging properly.

So got me a new motor sprocket from Rocky Mountain (110 euro's, cha-ching!!!:oops:). And when it was time to install it, id figure i best change the chain as well, as it had gone way past its wear limit. Due to circumstances i was forced to go with KMC instead of the Shimano 12s chain.
The cassette and chainring were still in pristine condition, but just to be sure i also swapped out the 5 lower cogs of the cassette to avoid chain skipping.

I didnt expect much of the KMC chain, but wow it has been performing amazingly well! :D
I was obviously expecting it to be better than the old worn out cog/chain combo, but it felt like it was even way better than when the bike was new from the factory! Buttery smooth, very little vibration, if any at all...

So that got me thinking, is the Shimano chain (i think it was a CN-M6100) actually compatible with the Dyname motor sprocket?

And then i saw this video from LoveMTB:
So what he is showing, is that a Shimano HyperGlide+ chain is way different from all the other types of 12sp chains out there (like SRAM for example, but i think KMC is pretty similar).
So its not unthinkable that a Shimano HG+ chain performs differently on the Dyname motor sprocket compared to a non-HG+ chain.
Especially those angled flanges on the inside of a HG+ chain could potentially cause additional rubbing and vibration, and that could lead to excessive wear on the motor sprocket (and we would like to avoid that since the damn thing is expensive as f*ck).

So, isnt it weird that Rocky Mountain uses only one type of motor sprocket for both Shimano and SRAM drivetrains?

Well, now i dont know what to think... What is your experience? Have any of you swapped a Shimano chain to KMC, SRAM, or equivalent? And did you experience a difference in how the drivetrain feels?

For now i will stick with this KMC chain, see how it performs in the long run.
 

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