Originally Posted by
FBinNY
Since the advent of Hyperglide, or gated shifting, with it's cut down teeth which make shifting easier, chains have had to have peened rivets to prevent the plates from spreading when shifting. That's been 20 years or so, starting with 7 speed.
So all chains intended for 7s and more gears need to be closed with a master link or the special pin, otherwise the chain will break sometime after a hard shift under load.
If the OP is lucky, he cut the chain to the long side, and can afford to remove the damaged link, and re-close his chain properly using the pin provided. If not he'll need two pins. One at each end of a spliced in section to close the chain at the correct length.
Well that explains it. My "new" bike was bought in '97 on sale because it was last years model. It has 7 cogs in the cassette. My previous bikes were 5 and 6 speed freewheels and I never used a master link.
When I bought my new bike I had read that 8 and 9 cog cassettes were coming sonI bought as many 7 hog cassettes as I could find. When I need a change, I just bring a cassette into the shop and let them do the work (because as I said, Inonly have freewheel tools)
The bike I was riding this morning is a rebuilt road frame with an ig hub. First chain change for me in a while.
I think I'll get it right tonight but I'm going to be careful not to push too hard (especially when cornoring) tomorrow