Clicking Bike Chains for Dummies

Rear derailleur barrel adjuster

Here at the Antisocial Network, we certainly do not subscribe to the notion that people of the female persuasion are incapable of mechanical pursuits. That's what our parents and grandparents thought, back when a woman's place was "in the kitchen." We do, however, realize that that sort of attitude has been responsible for a great deal of ignorance among women whose male role models didn't see fit to teach them about things they learned in shop class. One of those things that a LOT of women don't seem to have absorbed is describing sounds. Here's a case where one who claims to have expertise got it wrong: Abby Roberts and her post "How to Fix a Clicking Chain on a Road Bike" at SportsRec.com.

Roberts' bio at LiveStrong.com (the eHow.com client where this was originally posted) says that she "produces a blog for female cyclists." We hope her blog is more... authoritative than the post in question. Here's why we say that: Roberts starts by telling her readers that, "A dry chain can produce a clicking sound."  After some reasonably good instructions for lubing a chain, Abby then opines that you should,

"Check the front derailleur if the bike is still making noise. The clicking sound is most likely caused by the chain rubbing against the cage of the front derailleur."

Again, Roberts has a good suggestion for getting rid of a chain rubbing the front derailleur's cage, trimming the derailleur.¹ That, however, is it.

We disagree on both suggested causes. According to our dictionary, a click is, "[A] short, sharp sound as of a switch being operated or of two hard objects coming quickly into contact." A dirty chain will not make a "short, sharp sound"; it will make a grinding noise. Plus, the sound of a chain contacting the front derailleur isn't a "click," either: it's of longer duration, more of a scraping sound.

If you're hearing a repeated click coming from the chain while pedaling, neither of those is the likely cause. What is most likely is that your rear derailleur is out of adjustment. Another common cause of clicking is failure to center the rear wheel after a repair or other work. You can also get clicking if your chain and/or components (the cogs in the rear or the chain rings in the front) are badly worn.
We'd like to think that someone "expert" enough to be writing a blog for cyclists would know enough about the machine to be able to describe sounds. Our Dumbass of the Day did not.

¹ We note that Roberts seems unaware that you can't trim most (if any) triples...

copyright © 2020-2022 scmrak

DD - CYCLING