The question of chain strength has always seemed odd to me. I have only seen a few handfuls (out of many, many thousands of chains) of actual side plate or pin fractures over my 40 years of shop wrenching.

So when people talk about chain strength i always wonder what they are really referring to. Is it pure tensile strength? Or pin/side plate retention after the chain is given a side force? Or do they mean the wear rate of the pins and bushings (if any)?

I can say without any doubt that the vast majority of chain failures are due to rider or assembly error. And i mean in the high 99.?% of failures. Poor pin installs, jam/power shifting, way too tight a tension, bent teeth, chain suck, ders into the spokes, the list goes on. But actual metal failure without outside forces, never been my concerns. (The one exception I know of was a production series of Sachs chains in the late 1980s which were over hardened).

And I say this as a tandem rider where said chain failure causes my loved one harm (and not just my problems). Andy