The day a guy at the local co-op showed me why my chain was skipping every time I climbed

I was at the Bike Kitchen in Portland last Tuesday and this older volunteer named Dave watched me struggle through a shift on the stand. He grabbed a Park chain checker and ran it over my drivetrain and just laughed. Turns out I had been riding on a chain that was stretched way past .75 for like 2 months, which explained the skipping under load. He swapped it in 5 minutes with a new SRAM one and now I check every chain I see before I even touch anything else. Has anyone else had a simple tool fix a problem you were chasing for weeks?

3 comments

3 Comments

grantw4111d ago

Yeah that tool pays for itself real quick.

johnson.river11d ago

The 1.0 mark is exactly where I caught mine too after a buddy told me about that trick from an old mechanic on a forum. @sarahpark I remember reading something about people skipping the chain checker because they think it's unnecessary, but that's just asking for a silent drivetrain failure mid ride lol. I actually saw a video where a guy compared a stretched chain vs a new one on a power meter and the efficiency loss was wild, like 5-10 watts just from the chain slop. Totally worth the $15 investment if you ride more than a couple thousand miles a year.

sarahpark11d ago

Man that chain checker is a lifesaver. Same thing happened to me on my touring bike last year. Chased a weird skip for three weekends. Replaced the cassette, cleaned the jockey wheels, even swapped pedals. Then my buddy handed me a Park checker at a group ride. Chain was toast past 1.0. Felt like an idiot. Now I check every chain before I even lube it.