Talk:Bicycles/Maintenance and Repair/Chains/Installing a new chain

Chain installation is more difficult than this page indicates. There are grammatical errors.
Most people take their bike to the local shop for any repair of maintenance. Those who do not are usually pretty sophisticated. The latter are, I would judge, the ones coming to Wikipedia for information on how to install a new chain.

So, I congratulate the author of this piece for mentioning the bit about Shimano chains. Sadly, telling someone not to use "ordinary" pins and not to reuse pins, while very important and true, doesn't begin to cover the problem.

For all of it's high and fairly high end gear, Shimano REQUIRES a special pin for assembly, REQUIRES that you not reuse pins, and RECOMMENDS that you insert the pin in the correct end of the link - "in the hole of the outer link on the front side in the direction of travel". Sadly, that last instruction is, uh, subject to some range of interpretations. They have pictures but they have become ambiguous in the translation.

So, I would suggest one of three alternatives:

1. (my favorite) Expand the page with instructions on how to assemble, replace and repair chains. The Shimano high end part will be difficult and require some consultation with an expert (The head mechanic at the Bike Gallery chain in Portland, OR would be a good choice.) I know nothing about mountain bikes, but they far outnumber road bikes today at all price points. Thus you should do a lot on these after consulting with someone who is. I've not seen this anywhere on the web - other than manufacturer tech sheets such as those on the Shimano site. They are complete and well done, but intended for expert bicycle mechanics.

2. Give some good advice assembling and replacing chains on "run of the mill" bicycles. This is available to some extent on the web, but not to the level that I would expect from Wikipedia. The subject also gets short shrift in most bicycle repair books.

3. At least change the existing page as follows

Instead of:

--existing page ---

"In general a new chain comes with detailed mounting instructions. For Shimano 8 speed or more, chain can be shipped :

1. With a preinstalled pin, that can be used to close the chain 2. Without preinstalled pin, but with a special reinforced connecting pin

Important is for Shimano, and probably for many modern chains, to DO NOT reuse ordinary pins. It is explained here : [1] On modern Shimano chains you should push the original rivet out entirely and replace it with a special replacement rivet, reinstalling the original pin is likely to cause the chain to break at that point."

-- end of existing page

I would suggest the following. (besides correcting grammatical errors)

"In general, a new chain will come with mounting instructions. If not, you should consult the manufacturers web site, or, for standard bicycles, any of the standard bicycle repair books.

Higher end chains come shipped with a special pin for installation and REQUIRE SPECIAL CARE. If you dissemble such a chain do not reuse the pin and take care to install the new pin correctly. Shimano, in particular, has extensive, though technical information on assembling their high end chains on their web site. Their chains also come with these instructions."

END OF MY SUGGESTION NUMBER 3

The link in the existing page is broken. (the one called [1])

I just discovered some rather lengthy descriptions of how to "break" (dissemble) chains and how to reassemble them in other parts of the maintenance and repair section. They do not reference this page near as I can tell.

Finally, if you think it is worthwhile to have a fairly complete page on installing chains, including high end ones, let me know and I'll see if I can get some folks to work with me on it.

Cheers,

tas

slobko@gmail.com