POLL: Have you ever had a chain break? What make?

mfin

Quick survey as I was discussing this with a riding buddy...

Have you ever had a chain break before it would be described as 'worn out', if so what make was it??

You can select multiple makes if you've had different makes break.

If you've had several of the same make break, please post to say how many.

CiB

My Shimano broke after it had been off for a good clean and lube. That's when I discovered that Shimano chains need a new pin to join them back together, or a Power Link. Live & learn...

napoleond

Shimano, MTB. Under power up a steep hill. Hurt my knackers.

fatreg

Same as above, XTR chain, off a nice flat up a hill trying to carry some speed, out the saddle, crank, crank and bang, chain gives way, legs go mental spinning the cranks for a few seconds until I whack my manhood on the top tube, smarted somewhat for a while.

Bozman

I was talking about this with a mate too at the wknd, he's just started cycling again after a few years out and i commented that i carried i mini chain tool and quick link now........ "why?" he asked.
We have a combined 38 years of cycling without a break but i could be forty miles from home tomorrow and ....snap! so it's there just in case.
Shimano for 18 years and KMC for the last year and my mate has always used Shimano.

MattC59

In about 28 years of cycling, I've never had one break, but still carry a chain tool and power link.

Smokin Joe

I broke a SRAM chain after some clot :oops: had damaged it when adding a link.

cycologist

Shimano 8 speed (road) Going up steep hill only 2 miles out from home - couldnt be bothered to prat about with my chain tool etc at the side of the road -walked back and got a different bike out the garage.

jordan_217

Shimano x 2. Damage resulted in broken mech, mech hanger and on one occasion a few spokes.

The first time I was down on the bars when the rear wheel locked up and I was thrown forwards off the bike. I thought I'd been hit by a car. Appears that the one of the pins hadnt' been pushed home correctly and the pin subsequently failed and sheered off. Bike was a few weeks old, I had never touched the chain.

Same thing happended to me again on my other bike on New Years Eve 2011. A six mile walk on a misty, cold and dark bridleway isn't much fun. I picked the bike up and ran the last few miles. Not because I was scared of the weird noises and kept thinking about the Sleepy Hollow film. No, because I'm dedicated and thought it would be good training. :oops:

I now use SRAM chains. No problems.

Mad_Malx

Shimano - several

15 year old chain (!) on rigid MTB standing up climbing a 25% slope - somehow managed to avoid knackers
2 year old tiagra @ 3k miles changing up at top of a big hill
Two weeks later after not joining the replacement for the above properly. Started using SRAM quick links after this.
Another new one after about a month - not sure what when wrong there, it wasn't the joining link that went.

So far got away without damage to self or bike. For most I figured out what was happening and managed to ease off in time.

I'm hoping the OP from the legendary 'broken chain' thread will join us - the forum is a bit quiet just now.

disgruntledgoat

Campag x 1

Going uphill out of the saddle, albiet slowly, pinged in two resulting in a broken elbow.

KMC x 2

First one on the Muur de Geraadsbergen in the Flanders sportive. In the hotel that morning I was wavering over whether or not to pack my chaintool and spare link and thought that if I needed them and didn't have them I'd be really annoyed!

Second one about 8 miles from home. That was a long walk.

team47b

serious question, not taking the pi55, how do you break a chain or a spoke for that matter?

Am I not man enough, strong enough, fat enough, please tell me as I too would like to break things.

Mad_Malx

team47b wrote:

serious question, not taking the pi55, how do you break a chain or a spoke for that matter?

Am I not man enough, strong enough, fat enough, please tell me as I too would like to break things.

In 25 years riding I never broke a chain, but I have broken about 4 in the last 5 years. I suspect modern 'high performance' chains are a lot more fragile.

Ride the bike for a long time without cleaning or replacing, when it eventually breaks replace it with a Shimano but lose their push pin and try to join with the usual link pin - this will fail after a short time.

Superbalicious

Shimano, first proper ride out on my new (at the time) Trek 1.9... I was not happy. It snapped just as I was getting out of the saddle on a hill... Fortunately I while I was walking up the hill to catch up with my father, I was passed by another cyclist who was actually part way through a John O'Groats to Lands End ride! He even had a cool scrollable map on his bars. He was happy to stop and chat and helped us remove the broken links and refit the chain. He had just about every tool one might ever need. Needless to say I was straight on to my LBS where I had bought the bike and told them to expect me within the hour for a new chain while to be fitted while I waited.

The replacement was a KMC and so far it's been fine, even going back up the offending hill.

Something tells me that due to the popularity of shimano, they're likely to suffer more breakages (not that it's an excuse!)

Hoopdriver

You didn't leave "I never broke a link" in your list of poll options.

And that would be me. In over 40 years of cycling I've yet to snap a chain - knock on wood - but nevertheless I always carry a spare link and chain tool with me.

dw300

Never broken a chain or spoke either .. but I'm not heavy.

OP, you need to divide your results here by the number of chains in circulation to get accurate results .. all you're going to find here is that more Shimano ones break since there are so many more on them being ridden.

DavidBelcher

I've had 2 near misses with SRAM; the endless skipping of the gears gave the game away that there was a cracked (but not totally snapped) link in each case; their quality control seems to have gone down the pan since production shifted from the old Sedis factory.

Wippermann all the way for me these days - nigh-on bombproof.

David

mfin

Shimano in the lead at the moment then... I wonder if they are the make that sells the most chains, what do people reckon?

mfin

Hoopdriver wrote:

You didn't leave "I never broke a link" in your list of poll options.

That's cos most people never have, that wasn't the point in the Poll. It came about from me n my mate discussing chains breaking after he's had 2 KMC's break in a year, he's been riding for over 20 years too.

keef66

You didn't have a box for "cheap Chinese sh1t which came on the BSO bought in a box from a disused garage forecourt" otherwise I'd have ticked it.

Apart from that, over 40 years of cycling without a broken chain. Like many others, still go everywhere with a multitool which has a chain tool and a couple of quick links.

BeaconRuth

Bozman wrote:

I was talking about this with a mate too at the wknd, he's just started cycling again after a few years out and i commented that i carried i mini chain tool and quick link now........ "why?" he asked.
We have a combined 38 years of cycling without a break but i could be forty miles from home tomorrow and ....snap! so it's there just in case.

I've been carrying a chain tool on my bike for the last 8 years, since I last broke a chain. I was quite triumphant when I broke my chain the other day on a deliberately overgeared climb, and the extra weight for the last 50 to 60 thousand miles was suddenly worthwhile...........

The chains were Shimano in both cases but they probably both had a pretty hard life.

Ruth

andi1363

Shimano in the lead. Not got any data but I reckon the majority of new bikes come with shimano. By the time folk have upgraded to something different, they have chain maintenance skills. Only done one chain and that was after 30 years and it was ultegra 10!

dw300

Just as a comparison .. Shimano's cycling business is worth about $1.5B/yr, SRAM is about $0.5B/yr .. so Shimano has 3x more turnover, however I would suspect that Shimano has a much bigger piece of the OEM market, so I'd say that chains in circulation would be at least 3x more for Shimano, making breakages about as common as SRAM from the poll results. You should also put in options for never had a x, y, z brand chain break to look at it from another angle.

careful

Shimano in the lead at the moment then... I wonder if they are the make that sells the most chains, what do people reckon?

Just a guess but I reckon the stats roughly equate to the sales of each make so unfortunately it doesnt help in choosing my next chain.

Not trying to compete with other replies but I've never had one break in well over 50 years of cycling. I still carry a link and chain tool on most rides though.

izza

I'm in the never category as well.

Just think how many Strava PB's we'd all get if we left our chain tools at home.

rolf_f

Also, number of gears chains are sold for will affect things. The higher proportion of 11 speed and the lower the proportion of 8 speed and the more breakages you are likely to get.

You'll need a very large sample set for this to mean much.

on the road

I've never had a chain break, but I use the proper connecting pin on a shimano chain, not those sram links on a shimano chain.

Drumlin

Had a SRAM 10 speed chain break on the tandem yesterday after approx 700 miles of light use. Light for a tandem anyway. When speccing the tandem I originally wanted to stick with an 8 speed set up that had served us well on the old tandem for 15 years. But the specialist tandem shop insisted that 10 speed would be fine. I was glad that I was carrying a chain tool and a spare joining link.

Captain Fagor

1 Campag chain, albeit it was one half of a Wipperman connex link that went. Thankfully noted something funny going on with shift quality and stopped to check before it failed completely. Used my spare, and back on my merry way.

cougie

1 sedis chain and one on my fixed wheel. No idea on make.

Pross

The Shimano chain on my bike snapped the first time I rode it. I suspect it had been damaged when it was fitted. I've also had a Shimano chain I ordered turn up rusty out of the parcel. Club mate had a Campag chain break but it had been fitted with the wrong KMC link at a bike shop. I use SRAM now at the recommendation of my LBS who use them on all their Shimano builds.