Bike Chains for Dummy Facebook Engineers

derailleur

It's been quite a while since we bothered to look at the website Snapguide.com. In fact, we've only been there once before, for some dude's rather lame "instructions" on sharpening lawnmower blades. That doesn't mean their catalog doesn't include rubbish, it just means that it's hard to find anything there... but one of our team members (the staff cycling enthusiast) stopped by with a list of terms, and sure enough – she found Skylar Woodward and his... somewhat lacking version of "How to Change Your Bike Chain."

Right off the bat, it was obvious that Woodward's a hipster, because in his very first "step" he used the word "fixie." We all know that no hipster ever needs to change a fixie chain, because none of them ride the faddy little things long enough to wear out a chain. Be that as it may, Skylar thinks you can use his 16-step instructions for a bicycle with gears, so let's have at it...

Skylar starts going off the rails with step 4:

"Loosen both bolts (or skewer) on the rear wheel and remove the rear wheel from the bike."

Our cyclist scratched her head and asked, "Why would you do that?" It's unnecessary and, in fact, makes the job harder. In step 5, however, we learn why Skylar (a software engineer at Facebook, of all places) is getting this Snapguide wrong (and, perhaps, why Facebook thinks so many people are dead):

"Now pop open a cold brew. Professional bike mechanics always have a tasty microbrew on hand while they work." Not at our LBS, they don't. They also don't wear "blue nitrile gloves," because they do honest work instead of "social media." As Skylar progresses through his steps, he more or less gets things right. After all, there are a million YouTube videos and other online sites telling you how to do this, including ours. How hard can it be? However, we noticed a couple of odd things in Skylar's instructions. For instance, the person wearing gloves is working on a beat-up fixie (probably fourth-hand), while someone not wearing gloves is changing the chain on a  forest green Bianchi track bike. That's not to mention that Skylar apparently doesn't know about Power Links (or, for that matter, master links). After all those steps, we realized something weird: in step 4, Woodward wanted you to remove the wheel (unnecessarily, you may remember). Nowhere does he tell you to replace it... No, he just says in step 14, "Thread the chain onto the rear wheel cog. If you have a single-speed bike or internal hub gearing, make sure to pull the rear axel [sic] back in the rear dropout until the chain is very tight."

At this point, we always like to remind people that "Axel" is a man's name (c.f. "Beverly Hills Cop") and that they're taking about an axle. But never mind... You could probably follow this yutz's instructions and replace the chain on your Sting Ray with the banana seat, but it's for darned sure that Woodward has only changed one chain in his life and it was not on a bike with a derailleur. For pretending he has, Skylar earns an award: the Dumbass of the Day.

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