A bicycle requires decent maintenance, and one of its particular maintenance items is a bicycle chain. How to change the chain on a bicycle and why is it necessary?
Why is it necessary to change the chain?
It is recommended to change the bicycle chain every one and a half to two thousand kilometers, since it is subject to a lot of wear, and in particular, it stretches. This is not surprising, since a huge load falls on this part of the transmission, a large longitudinal force, which leads to the removal of the chain elements from each other, which entails a number of unpleasant consequences. This is, first of all, the slippage of the chain, which will occur when a large load is applied to the connecting rod. Thus, it will be quite difficult to develop high speed on a bicycle with a worn chain, and even about steep climbs, you will have to forget about it altogether.
The second unpleasant consequence of chain wear will be difficult gear shifting. When you try to throw the chain from one sprocket to another, it will jump off, not being able to rigidly fix on the teeth of the sprocket. Consequently, all the advantages of a bicycle with a high number of speeds come to naught.
While these problems are not so terrible for the everyday use of a cheap bicycle, professional athletes and advanced amateurs lose most of the advantages of their expensive, sophisticated bicycles.
How to determine the degree of chain wear?
After making sure of the need to periodically change the circuit, you should proceed to explaining the process itself. First of all, you should learn how to determine the moment when the chain requires replacement, because it is difficult to systematically monitor the mileage. The most accurate way to determine the degree of wear is to measure the distance from the center of an arbitrary pin (the axis connecting the links) to the center of the twenty-fourth pin after it with a simple ruler. This distance should be 304.8-306.4mm. If the measured distance exceeds the recommended one, the chain needs to be replaced.
How do I change the chain?
There are two types of chains: with a lock and with a pin. The first case is not of particular interest, since such chains are used on children's bicycles and it is not difficult to replace them, for this you only need a screwdriver.
The situation is more interesting with the second type of chains - a chain with a pin. First of all, you need a special tool - chain squeezing. It is highly discouraged to remove such a chain using available tools. The chain extractor is used to connect and connect the links of the bicycle chain. The sequence of actions when working with this tool is as follows:
- place the chain pin opposite the squeeze pin;
- tighten the pin screw, squeezing out the pin;
- extract a pin.
That's it, now the chain is disconnected, you can remove it and put a new one. The process of installing a new chain is fundamentally no different from the process of removing it.
