Mountain Biking - RANT: Not again.

Today, I was biking out in the snow and again, something broke. And it was the same part. The chain....broke...again. Man, why does this always happen to me?

I'm SO replacing the drivetrain....once I get the money. Man, this is annoying as heck. Broke the chain twice since I've had the bike and I've not even put too many miles on it. This is BS.

In the meanwhile - can anyone reccomend a good chain for trials? (Something that will take stress better than an HG.)

As we have said before.
SRAM ;)

The guys at the shop said sram chains wouldn't do it. By Sram, Im guessing that you mean replace my entire drivetrain for it? I'm not sure if I could drop all my money on that.

Wipperman if you are breaking them that often. But really sram should be fine. Shimano doesn't cut it.

Oh and doing trials...its bound to happen, trials is all about torque

Also...if I almost have ruined my allen key screws on my odis, how do I save them, other than using SAE?

Sorry to say it, but if the allen key is busted from odi grips then you seriously need better quality tools. A quality allen wrench will break the head off the bolt before it will round off.

No...I meant I rounded the thing a bit. :(

Its common, any shop should give you a couple.

if your beaking chains, unless the things in abnormal condition, its something with you. but get a pc69. Wipperman is a waste. plus sram chains come with the powerlink, enough said

As in the bolt head? Preferably I would SAE it, but there are sometimes other ways. I don't recall if Odis have enough exposed head to grab on with vise-grips. The other option is to get a Screw Extractor, looks like a backwards drill bit. That would catch the bolt and turn it out. If you have those, cool. If not, invest in some Sae allens first. They come in multi-tools like metric ones and are like 5-8 bucks at the hardware store.

woah woah woah

HG?
SAE?
Odis?

So lost...

odi's are locking handlebar grips... i dunno about the rest either.

SAE is imperial measurement. Most ofthe world uses metric, the states doesn't.

Swif is DOA? ;)

SAE= Society Automotive Engineers(aka fractional sizing wrenches)
HG= Shimano Hyper Glide Series, Contemporary with IG Inter Glide series, both drivetrain styles.

I guess if you're running HyperGlide, you're probably riding stock trials. Sachs chains are a good replacement for HyperGlide chains, if you don't want to fork out for a new SRAM drivetrain. I don't know of many places that stock them anymore (if anyone does, please let me know!), but a lot of the stock trials riders in my area prefer them. Wipperman would probably be a good bet, too. If they're good enough for track riders, they're probably good enough for trials.

The guys at the shop said sram chains wouldn't do it. By SRAM, I'm guessing that you mean replace my entire drivetrain for it? I'm not sure if I could drop all my money on that.

I dunno where your shops opinion of SRAM chains came from. Regardless, you don't need to replace your whole drivetrain to use a SRAM chain. I am running a SRAM chain and cassette right now with Shimano deraillers and Race Face rings. SRAM chains and cassettes are designed to intergrate with other shimano parts. Only their ESP deraillers and ESP shifters cannot be subsituted for Shimano counterparts.

I weigh 450lbs and I'm cranking along on my chain quite fine...oddly enough it's a SRAM chain...whatcha know?

Think its possible some water gets inside the chain links and then freezes, causing it to snap?

I broke several Shimano chains before I went to Sram chains and haven't had any problems since.

Don't get their PC-99 hollow pin. THat's designed for XC racing. Stick with a lower grade (heavier and thicker plates) chain. I'd go with their PC-990 or their PC-970. I like the nickel inner and outer plate, so my choice would be the 990.

What I ended up doing was switching back to 8-speed. Yes, this would require an entire new drivetrain, so it's costly, but if you break a lot of chains, it's worth doing when you upgrade your drivetrain. I'm running a PC-68 which is the 8-speed version of the PC-990.

The only chain I have ever broken was a Shimano Durace, and this broke within 4 hours of riding. When it broke , it was not just one link, at least 4 rivets were about to pull out so I put it down to a faulty chain.
I always use the shimano XT or whatever they want to call it nowadays, and I replace it every spring without fail (Once a year in other words) However On the tandem, Which gets a lot more Strain put on it, I measure the chain, and as soon as it stretches to the limit of the gauge, I change it, May be a year, but has been as short as 3 months. Depends how fit we are and how much riding we do.

I did try a Sram chain but as it caused skipping, I threw it at my son in law, and he threw it a week later. May have been a faulty chain, but did not work on my bike so back to shimano and no more problems. This was fitted on my bike with New Rings and Cassette So cannot be put down to the usual problem.
Incidentally, The Tandem is 9 speed so I can vouch for the strength of the XT chain, in case some of you are worried about 9 speed being too weak for you.