Chains falling off - solution?

[55by11]

It seems never a race goes by without some poor guy's chain coming off. It strikes me as not a very professional image to project - I mean, the kid down the street has his chain fall off, but on a £10,000 bike ridden by a £250,000 a year rider in top-flight professional races? Also it interferes with the natural outcome of the events.

Would it be beyond the wit of man to devise some means of preventing this happening? And while we're at it, punctures too?

 

[Libertine Seguros]

As long as people are crashing, and riding on surfaces that aren't pool-table smooth, then mechanicals and accidents will be part of the sport.

You'll never have cycling without mechanicals, just like you'll never have car racing without punctures or tyre wear affecting the outcome, you'll never have XC skiing without ski prep making a difference, and so on.

 

[benpounder]

It seems never a race goes by without some poor guy's chain coming off. It strikes me as not a very professional image to project - I mean, the kid down the street has his chain fall off, but on a £10,000 bike ridden by a £250,000 a year rider in top-flight professional races? Also it interferes with the natural outcome of the events.

Would it be beyond the wit of man to devise some means of preventing this happening? And while we're at it, punctures too?

Sure. However there is one thing preventing solutions that you mention. Weight.

A 25kg bike would never slip a gear, a 35kg bike would never flat. Folks realize that riding a 6.8kg bicycle is much faster - even with the occasional mechanical faults.

 

[ElChingon]

An internal drive mechanism like in cars. Wait there's a lot of weight to that
Then you have to worry about the gear linkage if you want to shift to different gears, yea that never fails

As for the tires they do make solid rubber tubes, again they weigh a ton but never a flat!

 

[Arnout]

As long as people are crashing, and riding on surfaces that aren't pool-table smooth, then mechanicals and accidents will be part of the sport.

You'll never have cycling without mechanicals, just like you'll never have car racing without punctures or tyre wear affecting the outcome, you'll never have XC skiing without ski prep making a difference, and so on.

Cars having tire wear is intentional at the moment and feels a bit artificial to me, and I'm no fan of it. That's a different discussion though.

 

[FabulousCandelabra]

Sometimes I wonder if Pro riders shift like cavemen compared to myself.. They have had mechanics do all their bike maintenance for them since they were racing bikes as children, do they even know how all the parts on a bike function, or do they view their shifters as magical devices? Like when Andy was messing around shifting in his front rings at a critical point in a mountain stage, that would be a time to be extra careful with your shifting..how do you eff that one up on your perfectly maintained brand new bike.. My bike is old and rusty, maintained by myself, and you don't see me dropping my chain when I'm cranking up the steepest hills on my commute to work...jeez

A 25kg bike would never slip a gear, a 35kg bike would never flat. Folks realize that riding a 6.8kg bicycle is much faster - even with the occasional mechanical faults.

I bet we could make a bike that doesn't slip gears (nuvinci hub) and doesn't get flats, that weighs way less than 25kg... I once had thick touring tires, with mr. tuffy tire liners, and thorn resistant tubes on my touring bike, and I rode for 2 years, thousands of miles, on rough roads, without getting a single flat(eventually the tube self destructed), that's gotta weigh quite a bit less than solid tires, and handle better..

 

[Afrank]

Yes there is a way to avoid dropping the chain, this

But no matter what there will always be mechanicals. As for punctures the pros ride 100+ miles a day 7 days a week, after that kind of use tires get pretty worn out, punctures are a part of bike racing just like dropping a chain.

 

[Caruut]

Yes there is a way to avoid dropping the chain, this

But no matter what there will always be mechanicals. As for punctures the pros ride 100+ miles a day 7 days a week, after that kind of use tires get pretty worn out, punctures are a part of bike racing just like dropping a chain.

If worn out tyres were the reason why people got punctures, I think that the teams might have figured out how to solve it by now. It's just maths really; in a 200km race, with 150 guys, you are getting 30,000km raced (roughly equivalent to 3/4 of the way around the globe), so you're bound to have some flats.

 

[Afrank]

If worn out tyres were the reason why people got punctures, I think that the teams might have figured out how to solve it by now. It's just maths really; in a 200km race, with 150 guys, you are getting 30,000km raced (roughly equivalent to 3/4 of the way around the globe), so you're bound to have some flats.

My point exactly, when you ride as much as the pros do your going to get a few flats.

 

[barn yard]

you can definitely still drop a chain with those chain drop stopping devices

the problem is that you cant get the chain back on with your hands if you do drop your chain and one of those things is fitted

 

[benpounder]

Sometimes I wonder if Pro riders shift like cavemen compared to myself...

A number of years ago I was riding my mountain bike in Apex (a trail network just west of Denver). Riding hard, I misjudged my timing and placement. 50m further up the trail I confirmed what I had instantly know - the snake-bite punctures on the inner-tube that reveals a pinch flat.

Of the 5 bikes that I currently own, I know all their idiosyncrasies. Yet when tired, or hammering, occasionally I still shift improperly, and still flat.

I'm glad that you are such a perfect rider that that never happens to you. My question is... why then are not you leading the pro peloton? /snark

 

[spalco]

They should just ride single-speeds on flat stages; with proper tension the chance of dropping the chain is close to zero then imo.

 

[Parrulo]

Cars having tire wear is intentional at the moment and feels a bit artificial to me, and I'm no fan of it. That's a different discussion though.

As a mechanical engineer i find this post very funny.

p.s. please enlighten me on what kind of rubber endures 3 hours(like in an F1 race) of high tension, high temperatures and G forces?Have you ever thought that maybe the advantages of a softer more degradable rubber outdo the benefits of an harder rubber?

i am being serious here.

 

[fatsprintking]

My take is that pro's drop chains because the quality of their kit and its preperation allows people to get away with things that you shouldnt really do, and so they get a little lazy and go banging it into the small ring while out of the seat on a bumpy road. Most of the time they get away with this and so continue to take the risk.

shifting gear used to be a skill and a chance to attack if your opponent had made a poor choice (pre indexing and sti), but now everything works so well you dont really have to think about it except those times when you really should have - like when the chain actually drops.

Tyres are actually pretty reliable and light weight is worth the risk when compared to how many races you actually loose due to a puncture - ie its a calculated risk.

 

[fatsprintking]

They should just ride single-speeds on flat stages; with proper tension the chance of dropping the chain is close to zero then imo.

Would they be able to ride with bright deep V rims and super thin flat bars as well. Maybe they could wear jeans cut off as shorts and it would be great if they had beards - that would be so cool

 

[Arnout]

As a mechanical engineer i find this post very funny.

p.s. please enlighten me on what kind of rubber endures 3 hours(like in an F1 race) of high tension, high temperatures and G forces?Have you ever thought that maybe the advantages of a softer more degradable rubber outdo the benefits of an harder rubber?

i am being serious here.

Well, the Bridgestones of 2010 for example were much more durable and as far as I know not much slower (I don't know how much faster the rest of the car of 2010 was compared to today though). I agree that the 2010 racing wasn't brilliant either, but at the moment riders cannot even go full out for one lap before destroying their tires.

I am an advocate of bringing back refueling, together with the current tires, that would be more interesting in my opinion.

 

[DominicDecoco]

Sometimes I wonder if Pro riders shift like cavemen compared to myself.. They have had mechanics do all their bike maintenance for them since they were racing bikes as children, do they even know how all the parts on a bike function, or do they view their shifters as magical devices? Like when Andy was messing around shifting in his front rings at a critical point in a mountain stage, that would be a time to be extra careful with your shifting..how do you eff that one up on your perfectly maintained brand new bike.. My bike is old and rusty, maintained by myself, and you don't see me dropping my chain when I'm cranking up the steepest hills on my commute to work...jeez

And that is pretty much the only example you can come up with..

There are no problems at all with chains falling off unless it's due to crashes.

 

[Angliru]

And that is pretty much the only example you can come up with..

There are no problems at all with chains falling off unless it's due to a crashes.

Being an expert on Andy's foibles I can recall another in a ITT where rolling off from the start he lost his chain again. It was some time after the 2010 Tour incident likely in early 2011. I can't remember the exact race though.

 

[DominicDecoco]

Being an expert on Andy's foibles I can recall another in a ITT where rolling off from the start he lost his chain again. It was some time after the 2010 Tour incident likely in early 2011. I can't remember the exact race though.

But can we agree on it's really not a problem?

 

[veganrob]

Andy has raised, lowered the bar on shifting efficiency. Only he could make the act of something so simple into an issue.

 

[eljimberino]

Phinney had a crash. He definitely was not shifting to the small ring on that profile.

Chains come off less than 0.01% of the time.