Cindy's TC idlers are over three years old with absolutely no maintenance. Still silent and smooth. I believe their current offerings use ABEC-7 bearings. I converted all of mine to VXB's ABEC-7 ceramics. $89 for a set of 10.

I've been dealing with flats lately, no time to take the tubes off.  Damn those goat heads to he!!!  I think my first experiment will be to ride a week with no tubes, making sure the chain is well lubed.  Will report back.  Are Terracycle idler bearings good for a few years with no additional lubing? 

With 559 rear wheels, the chain drag near the ground isn't -as much- of a problem.  The thing with 406 wheels is thast the der jockey is sitting right next to the tire that is belching puffs of stuff right at the chain.

I'm all for full front tubes, coming and going.  No reason to just trim the return much longer past the idler's tube hold down.  Just remember that you -will- have some additional weight that the jockey hanger will have to hold up unless you suspend that part of the tube somewhere.

Greg, I would love to see Pat's solution for tube mounts when you get it installed.

My philosophy is either get rid of all chain tubes as possible ... keeping in mind that certain setups need some shortys to clear frame members OR Have the tubes long enough to actually protect against chain oil tattoos & help keep the chain clean.

EXACTLY, Greg! If you're gonna have tubes, make 'em do as much as possible! What about tubes running behind the idlers, too? For a while I ran a tube from just behind the return idler to just in front of the der cage at full extension. This is the part of the chain that comes very close to the ground in certain gear combos. At this position it can actually bounce down to touch the ground, and at best it is constantly picking up any dust kicked up by the front wheels.

Around here we have a trail called The Little Blue Trace. Oldfrt knows this trail well, and I am sure it has eaten many of his chains, too. It has areas where it is so powdery that the dust cloud pushes ahead of each tire just like the bow wake of a ship, and it then spreads out very wide to engulf the chain. We once did a 14 mile ride on this trail and it caused my trike to quit shifting in index mode from all the dust on the upper bogie. I followed Cindy and had about 1/8 of this dust on the front edges of all the trike parts, and on my face! Never did get all of the crud out of the chain after that. Full tubes, front and rear, might have helped the chain stay clean.

We don't ride that trail anymore. 

What about Pat's (Terracycle) floating tube?  Anyone try that yet?  It looks to be pretty good....