Singlespeed & Fixed Gear - throwing a chain.

damn, happened to me today as i was coming up to one of the busier intersections in portland (lombard and interstate). kind of scared me, but it was weird...after the initial shock, i told myself to calm down, watch for traffic i might have to dodge and put my foot on the rear tire...slowed to a stop, managed to not get hit by any cars and not hit a mass of peds as i went onto the sidewalk to put the chain back on...

*sigh*...now i have to fix the chain tension.

it sucks going uphill and breaking a chain. after the snap you realize you need to get off your bike asap or you'll roll backwards and eat it hard.

ha ha...yeah, i can see that.

it was mny fault earlier, i realized the tension was low, but i figured i'd wait till i got home to deal with it.

Its funny when your chain actually snaps and then you have to walk through traffic searching for where you dropped it (theres usually a car on top of it already). I'm becoming quite a veteran at losing chains while riding brakeless, and the friction burns on my riding shoes is evidence enough.

this situation is making me scared of switching over to cleats/road pedals.

just adequately tension your chain and dont run a crappy/old one thatll break on you

Its not always that simple! I've dropped/snapped my chain with good tension and newish chains. I blame miche. KMC has yet to fail on me

I blame miche.
I blame poor installation

kinda makes you want an emergency brake, eh?

kinda makes you want an emergency brake, eh?

Isn't that when you pedal backwards to slow down because your brake cable froze?

I thought that was factory installed on all fixed cogs.


:rolleyes:

redundancy is good.

I have yet to throw a chain. Maby it's because I haven't been riding long enough.

My most spectacular chain throw (which wasn't spectacular cause I had a brake) was when I was bombing down 4th in downtown and nailed a pothole super hard. Hard enough to knock my wheel in the dropout, throw the chain and bend the axle. Woo, that was fun.

not fun. suck it up. happens to everyone. stop bishing.

My most spectacular chain throw (which wasn't spectacular cause I had a brake) was when I was bombing down 4th in downtown and nailed a pothole super hard. Hard enough to knock my wheel in the dropout, throw the chain and bend the axle. Woo, that was fun.

ha ha, right in chinatown? (unless it was the other side of burnside)...i had to stop on 4th tonight, but at least there were pretty girls there.

my chain earlier had a ****load of play. a scary ****load. i'm keeping it to a 1/2" from here on out.

I have yet to throw a chain. Maby it's because I haven't been riding long enough.

...

Musta been bad luck in ptown last night. I was blasting down one of the steeper pitches on sixth last night coming into a read light as traffic was ripping through and went to skip....sure as ****, ****ing chain dropped off. I managed to keep my head and pop my foot off the pedal and skidded it along the ground to stop. ****ing scary...I'm gonna blame veloshop since I had them tighten my lockring/cog yesterday afternoon. I asked the guy if he was putting enough tension on the chain and he assured me he was. Apparently not. :(

I think I'm gonna go get a brake soon. I don't really want to see the new bike destroyed because I couldn't stop soon enough (much less myself)

yeah, i did a search and found that 1/2" of play in the chain is what you want...i put up a ruler next to the center of the rollers and tightened it to where i could move it 1/2" with my hand. no more, no less. feels better now.

musta been badluck in ptown last night...here's to keeping your head in emergencies!

i've been considering a brake lately, just for peace of mind, but i mean...i'm perfectly competent at brakeless riding, so it would be spending good money on something i wouldn't use, just for the placebo effect of it being there...if i'm making sense at all.