Threw the chain today

[JPaganel]

A few days ago I looked at my chain and thought it looked a little loose. I decided that since I had no idea how old it was I would just get a new one. eBay is full of correct chains for $25 shipped, so the cost wasn't prohibitive. Generic chains are usually long, so I ordered a chain breaker, too.

Today I was going to pick up my oldest form school (he missed his bus totally accidentally, and could I please pick him up, maybe on the motorcycle? Yah. I believe all of that. I fell off that turnip truck right after being born yesterday. ) when the bike clunked and stopped. The chain came off the rear sprocket and there was oil dripping near the front sprocket. That was a little worrysome.

I pushed the bike into a side street and got a ride from my wife. When I got back home to pick up the tools I had a really nice surprise - the new chain and the breaker were sitting in the mailbox.

The damage was fairly minimal. The oil drip was due to the chain pushing on the clutch pushrod sideways, which made it drip out of the seal. Stopped soon as I moved the chain. The replacement went fairly smooth. The only thing that worries me is that a couple of teeth on the sprocket are shorter than the rest. I'm looking at MikesXS for a replacement.

Speaking of which, should I go for the 16 tooth or 17 tooth?

 

[ShaqX7]

Up to you. The difference will be very slim unless you like to rip it on the highway a lot. You will lose 500rpm at 120kph. In the city, the 17 will force you to shift a bit later, but will decrease cruising rpms maybe 250ish (marginal imo).

 

[arfstrom]

17T is the way to do it, less than $15 bucks off of amazon, just dont use the first option in amazon, try to get it from Amazon, instead of the first choice! (i had a bad experience with the first option, took 2 weeks, then the item is soo cheap they don't track it via usps/fedex shipping, so you wait for delivered, and it never shows up. They were good at admitting it never got shipped, but the web said it did. So moral of story, choose from amazon, or from the host web site, they said Amazon had alot of rules that they could bend if I had ordered it from their own web site. Took longer, I had started to drive on the 16T and thought the RPMs, were a 1 to 100 ratio, for 55 mpg, the bike was about 5500 rpms, and 60 for 6000. the difference between 5 gear/6 gear was minimal. I was always double checking what gear by trying to go into 6th gear. Now with the 17T, I can tell I am in 6 gear cause the RPMs are 400 less then my MPG, (60 = 5600 rpms, and 80 = 7600 rpms.)