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Old 05-12-05 | 08:14 PM
  #28  
Ken Cox
King of the Hipsters
 
Joined: Jan 2005
Posts: 2,128
Likes: 2
From: Bend, Oregon

Bikes: Realm Cycles Custom

My MKS chaintugs came in the mail, along with a Campagnolo 15mm peanut butter wrench.

Before I get into the chaintug, I want to say something about this wrench.
What a beautiful design.
I keep looking at it, turning it over in my hand, and discovering new subtleties.

Regarding the MKS chaintugs, as soon as I got em (Businesscycles) I went out to the garage and tried to put them on my Pista.
Uh-Oh.
Learning curve.
Man, those critters look so simple, how could I make it so hard to put them on the bike?

Long story short:
Unlike my previous BMX-type chaintugs, these MKS chaintugs go on the inside of the dropouts, with the MKS logo outboard.
With my Pista, I had to stretch the dropouts apart a little to get everything in there, but after a coupla tries I found out how to do it with almost no effort.
Assembled correctly (I assume correctly), though, they look so good on the bike.
Really good.
Much better than I expected.

Frosting on the cake:
With the MKS chaintugs in place, the ends of the axle fit flush with the outboard face of the axle nuts, just as if MKS and Bianchi planned it that way.
The axles don't stick out and they completely fill the opening of the axle nuts, making one perfectly smooth surface.
It looks designed that way.

One downside:
While I had the wheel off I found the axle very gritty when I spun it with my fingers, with much more resistance than seems appropriate.
I attribute it to cheap bearings, but I might have it wrong.
I'd like to know what a properly adjusted axle with reasonable quality bearings feels like.
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