I'm a Slacker: Part 2 - a new chain

As I mentioned back on May 6, I had some sort of strange vibration start up after I had tightened my chain. I probably took longer than I should have getting it into the shop to look at it, but I finally got there. I explained the problem to the mechanic and his initial thoughts was that I had messed up the alignment of the rear wheel when I tightend the chain.

If you're not familiar with motorcycle chains, tightening one is essentially the same concept as a bicycle. You losen the rear axel and slide it back until the chain is the proper tension, making sure that the axel stays perpendicular to the midline of the bike so the wheel doesn't "wobble" when it turns. Most motorcycles have notches on each side of the axle to assist in the alignment. Theoretically if the axel is lined up with the same notch on both sides then your wheel should be straight. The mechanic says this isn't always completely reliable so they have other more rigorous ways to check alignment. I still need to learn what those are.

Anyway, when he got checking it, the alignment was okay, which made me feel better about myself. What he did find, however, was a section of the chain that was corroded. This caused some of the links to not fully straighten and bend at the joint. When the damaged portion of the chain would pass over the sprockets it would not fully bend or straighten out. This caused the chain to be extra tight during part of the rotation and loose for the remainder. So there was no way to tighten the chain evenly. The vibration was caused by the repeated tightening and loosening of the chain as it went around.

The cause of the corrosion was probably due to a lack of proper lubrication and winterizing of the chain. I was a little surprised at this since I road my bike most of the winter. I only road when the roads were clear and dry, but I road most of the time. However, there were a period of a week or 2 here or there that I wouldn't ride at all. I hadn't been lubricating the chain as frequently as I should, so I can imagine between that, the down-time and the winter road salt, the corrosion probably set in relatively quickly. The chain was getting pretty stretched anyway, so I probably didn't loose to much chain life, but it was a good reminder to properly care for my chain. That's one of the last things you want failing on you as you cruise down the freeway.

So, I got a new chain. A stock chain for my bike costs about $50, but they only had a high end $90 chain. The life of the high-end chain is supposed to be double that of the stock chain so I figured it was worth the extra money.

Part 2 down; a few more to go. Thanks for dropping by and keep the shiny side up.