Riding in Circles
Veteran
- Location
- EDINBURGH
I have never had a chain snap on a trike, I have a customer who had a problem once but I think it was a damaged chain.
A trifle draughty
- Thread starter Auntie Helen
- Start date
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andharwheel
Senior Member
- Location
- Frozen North
Before I put my Windcheetah in the full fairing, I often found that on cold days the bottom half of my body had to keep warm by wearing decent longs. I never felt much cold on upper body, always my legs.
OP
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Auntie Helen
Ich bin Powerfrau!
- Location
- 47906 Kempen, Germany
The chain break was right in the middle of a link, the metal just gave way. Perhaps a weak spot, perhaps the cold weather made it extra brittle, who knows. My baby is now with my excellent LBS being thoroughly serviced.
I went out on Uncle James's Trice QNT today. The narrower gap between the wheels is noticeable (I can't do really sharp corners as my lady-hips get in the way) but I also noticed that his rear mech seems quicker and quieter than mine, although the front is less good. His skinny Slick tyres make it seem easier to pedal; oh, and his cycle computer overreads significantly!
I went out on Uncle James's Trice QNT today. The narrower gap between the wheels is noticeable (I can't do really sharp corners as my lady-hips get in the way) but I also noticed that his rear mech seems quicker and quieter than mine, although the front is less good. His skinny Slick tyres make it seem easier to pedal; oh, and his cycle computer overreads significantly!
byegad
Legendary Member
- Location
- NE England
Helen you may want to look at buying a 'better' chain. 3000 miles to a failure sounds quite short to me. I have used SRAM PC951 chains for some time with no failures.
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Auntie Helen
Ich bin Powerfrau!
- Location
- 47906 Kempen, Germany
Well the LBS sell horrendously-expensive carbon bikes and loads of Campagnolo gear so I suspect they'll put something fairly decent on it.
Amanda P
Legendary Member
- Location
- York. Well, York-ish...
I read about chain failures somewhere recently.
When a side plate breaks (like what yours did, Auntie), they say that it's likely a rivet wasn't fastened properly, and came away from one of the side plates. The other side plate on that link then takes all the strain, and flexes as it does so.
Eventually, it can't take any more and it breaks.
A couple of years back, I foolishly ignored advice not to fasten a Shimano chain except with the special rivet provided, and just broke and re-fixed a normal rivet to remove and re-fit the chain. Sure enough, six months or so later, a link failed in exactly the way I've described. It was a recumbent, too. Possibly having to join three chains up gives a greater chance of one of the joined rivets failing.
It's possible someone did this on your bike - was it a Shimano chain? You never know what bike shop mechanics will do when you're not watching...
When a side plate breaks (like what yours did, Auntie), they say that it's likely a rivet wasn't fastened properly, and came away from one of the side plates. The other side plate on that link then takes all the strain, and flexes as it does so.
Eventually, it can't take any more and it breaks.
A couple of years back, I foolishly ignored advice not to fasten a Shimano chain except with the special rivet provided, and just broke and re-fixed a normal rivet to remove and re-fit the chain. Sure enough, six months or so later, a link failed in exactly the way I've described. It was a recumbent, too. Possibly having to join three chains up gives a greater chance of one of the joined rivets failing.
It's possible someone did this on your bike - was it a Shimano chain? You never know what bike shop mechanics will do when you're not watching...
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Auntie Helen
Ich bin Powerfrau!
- Location
- 47906 Kempen, Germany
The bike (including chain) was set up for me by Kevin at D-Tek so I would imagine it had a reasonable quality chain. We did remove a few links after I got used to the bike and got my boom length sorted, so perhaps in doing that (and fighting hard with the irritating undoable links) we slightly upset one. Who knows!
Amanda P
Legendary Member
- Location
- York. Well, York-ish...
Kevin knows his stuff.Auntie Helen said:
If it was a Shimano chain, it's quite likely. But of course the main thing is that it's fixed now!
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Auntie Helen
Ich bin Powerfrau!
- Location
- 47906 Kempen, Germany
Well it's not fixed JUST now, they're doing it tomorrow or Wednesday, but I will be very relieved to know it's all well sorted.
I had hoped to just have a mega service once per year but I think as I ride all year round, including grotty weather, on fairly rough rural roads, I ought to schedule a proper service twice per year; hopefully if I shell out on those I'll forestall any seriously expensive problems in the future. Maybe.
I do want to be sure all is well with the bike before I go off on my German tour on my own. I'm not the most practical of people, although I could hopefully fix most relatively straightforward problems (I can do punctures, after all), but am hoping if something more significant occurred then other passing cyclists would help. After all, we're one big happy family - and I speak the lingo so that should help too. "Meine Kette ist zerbrochen!" will hopefully not pass my lips, however.
I had hoped to just have a mega service once per year but I think as I ride all year round, including grotty weather, on fairly rough rural roads, I ought to schedule a proper service twice per year; hopefully if I shell out on those I'll forestall any seriously expensive problems in the future. Maybe.
I do want to be sure all is well with the bike before I go off on my German tour on my own. I'm not the most practical of people, although I could hopefully fix most relatively straightforward problems (I can do punctures, after all), but am hoping if something more significant occurred then other passing cyclists would help. After all, we're one big happy family - and I speak the lingo so that should help too. "Meine Kette ist zerbrochen!" will hopefully not pass my lips, however.
OP
OP
Auntie Helen
Ich bin Powerfrau!
- Location
- 47906 Kempen, Germany
Sadly no pix, I didn't look that closely at it, but Uncle James looked at it and was a little surprised. What I did notice was that there was a sharp edge of metal on both halves of the chain where it had broken, it wasn't that one end had a complete link and the other half a one, both ends had half links. I'm probably talking rubbish here, sorry!
The chain went to the LBS for them to have a look at it in case it casts any light on anything. We also took my old tyres to them so they could see the slight case of toe-in that the trike had and hopefully fix that.
The chain went to the LBS for them to have a look at it in case it casts any light on anything. We also took my old tyres to them so they could see the slight case of toe-in that the trike had and hopefully fix that.
byegad
Legendary Member
- Location
- NE England
SRAM's Power Links are good. The fact that my Trikes have three in each of their chains means removing a chain is a breeze, just find one of the links and squeeze it off. You CAN do this by hand if you want to get dirty hands or use the special Park Tool to unlink it cleanly. I carry a chain tool and a couple of spare links and a spare few links of chain on each trike. My theory is that if I do this I'll never need them!
