How to Measure and Replace a Bike Chain – Bicycling Magazine



Learn how to measure and replace your bike chain in Bicycling magazine’s maintenance and repair video series. The online bike repair videos help you get the most out of do it yourself bike repair and bike maintenance at home.
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22 comments

  • easier way is to lay the old and new chain next to each other and determine how many needs to be taken out. minus the wear

  • I can't find a master link in the bike I need to fix.

  • Nice side burns……

  • what's a rear derailer police? can you speak in human?

  • To what extent can you get away without having to replace the casette as well? on a few occassions ive replaced the chain. In the stand everything appears fine all runs smooth gears changing up down etc no problem but when i cycle on the road different story problems chain jumps not in all gears but a few of them?????????? Please advise

  • what's the price of a for a rockhopper chain

  • I watched this video and then failed. It looked so easy.

    I pushed a pin out of my old chain. Pushed a pin out of the new chain to make it the same lenght (this was not as easy as it looked since as Haralabos Lukatos mentions, there are make and female pins as it were. The first pin I removed left me with a chain with two female ends! Fortunately that was because I had made the chain one link too long. I removed another pin. I threaded the chain. Holding the chain together to insert the pin was not as easy as this video makes it look, for me. I would have liked some sort of fork like arrangemen on either side of the chain tool, to hold the chain together against the pull of the derailer. I put the pin in. Then I started to push it in using the chain tool.

    The problem was, I think, that the chain tool that I was using was made for a variety of different types (or speeds/widths) of chain. My bike is a ten speed with a fairly narrow chain. If I were riding a bike with fewer cogs at the rear the chain would be wider.

    The chain tool had a small nut-like adjuster on the opposite side to the handle. This video does not mention the adjuster. I ignored the adjuster.

    I ended up pushing the pin too far, such that it went through the near side of the chain since I found no, er, sense of closure, no sense of having pushed enough. I think that this is because I had not paid any attention to the adjustment of the tool maybe.

    My local bike shop is going to fix it for me, rather than with a replacement pin (since I have damaged not only the pin but also the hole in the final link) but with a replacement final link. I think that these links are more often associated with chain maker KMC, maybe. Perhaps they have downsides, being the weakest link. Or perhaps I can reuse this link, it and never have to use a chain tool.

    I would like to know how to adjust my chain tool to be the right width for my chain.

  • I have one shimano 9 speeds chain. i buy new. The chain in the one end have the pin in the other end in have the open pin the chain is ready to connect. But is too long for my bike. I want take out links but how i know what link i cut i want cut the chain where i can connect with the pin. How i know where in the chain is the outer pin and where is the inner

  • Best video I've seen. nice how you change camera angles. Good extra tips but not a bunch of yammering. Making the cassette and pulleys vertical is way easier than subtracting links. I think your only one to mention its directional and the open link goes in the front also.

  • I probably did it wrong, but just wanted to say that using this video as a guide resulted in the chain being too loose and the derailleur having no tension when using front-low and back-smallest 4. wouldn't using the biggest cog on the back when determining chain length be a better idea?

  • Alright man, thanx.

  • Greate tutorial! Thanks!

  • Cymru am byth .Wales for ever.

  • Do you come from a Welsh ancestry? I can see you have yr ddraig goch tatoo and JPR Williams lamb chop sideburns lol

  • is this the same in MTB?

  • Easy to understand–good details mentioned too. Thanks Todd!

  • why in some vids they thread it without the derailler and from big cog to big cog

  • Clearly shown, thanks, Todd!

  • Clear and easy to follow, with some tricks of the trade thrown in. Thanks

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