Bike Chain Installation for Dummies

Bicycle on repair stand

If there's any one thing that drives us nutser than stupidity in a freelance writer, it just might be stupidity in a content farm. We're about to lay waste to some English major who thought he could copy-reword-paste instructions for "How to Install a 21-Speed Bike Chain," but first we'd like to point out that the photo SportsRec.com put up alongside the post by Ryan Haas shows some department-store bike assembler with an open-end wrench installing the back wheel of a bike with an internal-hub derailleur. In our book, that's just plain stupid.¹ So is the "reference" someone from SportsRec slapped at the bottom of the post, which is, believe it or not, entitled "The Effect of Open and Closed Kinetic Chain Exercises on Dynamic Balance Ability of Normal Healthy Adults." Yep: stupid.

Haas, unfortunately, didn't do a whole lot better. Oh, he trotted out the expected reference to Sheldon Brown's canonical bicycle site and pretended to have used a website on using a chain tool, but the AN staff cyclists are pretty certain Ryan had never actually performed this task himself. Here's why:

• Ryan never said to put the bike in a repair stand or turn it upside down. If you don't? first, the position is extremely awkward and second, the likelihood of the new chain dragging on the ground and picking up dirt is high.
• He didn't advise his readers to shift into the shortest gear combination: smallest chainring to smallest cog.
• In the instructions for breaking the chain, Haas said to "Place one of the chain links on the link rest that is farthest from the push rod on the chain tool," but didn't seem to know that you also have to line up the pin with the chain tool's pushrod.
• Ryan botched his sixth-grade grammar lessons by saying, "Feed one end of the replacement chain over the top of the lowest pulley in the derailleur," but there are only two (hence, "lower pulley"). Oh, and no warning about the divider between the jockey pulleys. Oops... Hell, Ryan, just tell 'em to take a picture before breaking the old chain!
• He said, "Pull the chain through the derailleur and wrap it over the largest chainring on the front of the bike." No Ryan, the smallest² chainring. Plus, chainrings aren't "on the front of the bike" - they're pretty much dead center.
• When it comes to putting the ends of the chain together, Haas trotted out tired instructions for using the chain tool to "reassemble" the chain. Ummm, Ryan? You're putting on a new chain, not reassembling one you took apart. Be that as it may, only a masochist (or professional mechanic) installs chains that don't include a "power link" or other quick chain connector. Well, a masochist or someone who's never changed a chain. If you do need to use the chain tool, you'll be installing a new pin, not a pin that was already in place.

Worst of all, however, our Dumbass of the Day did not know enough to include two critical instructions. The first is, of course, to buy a replacement chain that's sized correctly for a seven-speed cogset. Anything else just won't work. The second instruction? This moron didn't tell his readers to cut the new chain to the same length – i.e., the same number of links – as the one you took off.

We give Ryan a grade of D and a fitting reward for his (lack of) work here.

¹ In case you don't get it, any 21-speed bicycle costing more than $119 has a quick-release skewer on the wheel, not to mention that there are no 7-speed internal hubs paired with multiple chainrings; ergo no 21-speed bike with an internal derailleur.

² To be a 21-speed drivetrain, you have to have seven rear cogs and three chainrings.

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