Monday, December 29, 2008

Chain Break and Lube

These are probably the least exciting pieces of our gear that we currently own. Really I'm not even sure what to say about them.

Over winter break one of my gifts to my brother was fixing up his bike. Ok, so formally the gift was new handlebar tape, but one thing led to another. One thing we noticed was that his chain was very stretched - more than 1%. It was bad to a point where some links were visibly bigger than others. So we got a new chain and set about replacing his old one.

Turns out replacing a chain isn't as easy as I remembered. In order to do it we needed a Park Tool CT-5 Mini Chain Brute Chain Tool, which I purchased at BC Bicycles in Vestal, NY. To change a chain, you need to first use the tool to push a pin out of a link, then lay the chain flat on ground that you don't mind getting greasy. Then lay the new chain next to it. They should be pretty close to the same length. If not, then remove a link from the new chain. This is the easy part.

Now put the new chain on the bike and line up the link at the end with the pin on the other end and use the break tool to push them together. But be really careful that you line things up straight since if they're bent a little bit they won't bend and you'll have a nasty experience. This actually took a lot of work. Definitely something that would have been a lot easier with a proper workstand.

I also got a bottle of Park Tool CL-1 Synthetic Blend Chain Lube for Christmas. Keeping a clean chain is important since it makes shifting easier and helps to preserve the life of all of the gears. So we're going to need to clean our chain probably every other week, depending on the roads we ride on. This lube will go on after a good cleaning.

They're both Park tools, and Park is pretty much the name in Bicycle tools. Sorry, nothing exciting to see here.

| posted at: 11:30 | permanent link and comments

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