Oiling your chain could be a thing of the past soon, thanks to materials innovations from the top chain manufacturers. BIKEmagic have just been supplied this Taya stainless steel chain, which is currently undergoing abusive testing (we’re not oiling it, rather than shouting at it) to see what the durability is like. We’ve already heard about a KMC stainless chain that’s fully self-lubricating, and we’ve seen the Wipperman German made stainless chain, but this model we have here is a reasonably-priced mass produced chain that promises rust-free performance (though it is actually meant to be oiled – but let’s see what happens, eh?).Though stainless steel doesn’t have as high a tensile strength as some steels, it is harder and tensile strength has never appeared to be a problem on the other parts of the bike that stainless is used in – spokes and control cables.

We’ll let you know how we get on.