Snap! - chain advice

redvision

So i have just got back from what was supposed to be a nice couple of hours on the bike.
Just 15mins in, whilst climbing a pretty steep hill, i was spinning away and all of a sudden SNAP! took me a second or two before i realised what had happened, but as i looked down there was no chain - it was a few metres back lying snapped on the road.

Luckily i had a chain tool in my multitool, so i took the dud link out and rejoined the chain.
Was very conscious of the chain from then on so had to cut ride short and returned home.

I have 7 speed sora on the bike and was using shimano hg70 7 speed chain. it has done under 500miles and i have always made sure its regularly cleaned and always lubed. so this came completely out of the blue.

Annoyed now as it means a couple of days off the bike whilst i get hold of a chain.
Not sure if i should buy another hg70 chain or some alternative. any recommendations??

keef66

If the rest of the chain looks OK I'd just tidy the ends and join it with a KMC link

forward_loop

check both sides of the chain for any signs of split plates - run a cloth over it first! if everything looks OK it should be fine to keep you cycling for the next couple of days. It happens now and again - occasional batches of sub standard chains appear now and again - Ultegara 10 speed last year (or was it year before) for instance and the odd breakage. These chains are pretty heavy duty (more so than 10 speed) so snapped chains should be a rarity.

redvision

thanks for the replies.

have looked at the chain tonight and it definitely needs replacing.
pretty annoyed after so few miles but guess its one of those things.

out of interest, would the sram 7/8 speed chain chain be compatible with my sora 7 speed??

Giant Phil

redvision wrote:

out of interest, would the sram 7/8 speed chain chain be compatible with my sora 7 speed??

Yes

Butterd2

Don't know why but I have always had problems with Shimano chains, if you are going to replace then I'd recommend the best KMC chain you can afford.

andy_wrx

KMC or SRAM 8sp chainwith missing link joins - gave up @rsing around with Shimano joining links many years ago, far too much of a faff

bobgfish

Don't know why but I have always had problems with Shimano chains, if you are going to replace then I'd recommend the best KMC chain you can afford

+1

rake

crossing the chain and changing under load does it no good. ive never had one snap.

BruceG

Butterd2 wrote:

Don't know why but I have always had problems with Shimano chains, if you are going to replace then I'd recommend the best KMC chain you can afford.

Shimano chains are manufactured by KMC

Border Cyclist

Hi - I think a snapped chain is mainly about bad luck. I have only had it happen once - this was just a few minutes into a ride and at the time I lived at the bottom of a hill so I simply free-wheeled home I would agree that a faulty batch or bad chain lines could contribute, but unless this happens to you regularly then bad luck is probably all it is. For 7, 8 and 9 speed, my preference was always SRAM. Well done for fixing the chain 8)

bobgfish

BruceG wrote:

Shimano chains are manufactured by KMC

Maybe they are. But why then do they not last as long and seem to crack the plates. I saw three broken 5600 and 6600 ones last winter. The shimano must be made to a price point as I don't think they are as good as the KMC's which seem to last longer and I've not seen a cracked plate on one yet. I've swapped and until I see the KMC chains behave in that manner I'd rather stick with them and pay the fraction more for them.