I stripped the teeth off the middle chainring of the Sugino Mighty 500x crankset on my 1998 Klein Pulse Race. Decided to replace the whole crankset with a Sugino XD600 - it was about the same price as a set of good replacement chainrings.

I'm putting on the XD600, and it starts to rub against the bracket pictured below, which is bolted to the underside of the right chainstay and across the piece that connects the two chainstays behind the bb, as I tighten the bolt. So my question is this: What is this bracket, and can I bend the flanges that are interfering back or just remove the whole thing?

Thanks!