On Monday, April 29, 2019 at 10:03:49 AM UTC-4, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Monday, April 29, 2019 at 2:26:15 AM UTC-4, wrote:
On Saturday, April 27, 2019 at 9:12:38 AM UTC-5, Joerg wrote:

Chains usually do not snap without some serious lack of maintenance or
running them way past prime. Never heard of a driveshaft break except
once on a heavy vehicle (bus). Belts usually snap out of the blue.


I've been on two rides where bicycle chains broke. One was mine. Hit a small bump/curb on the trail when crossing a street and the chain jumped off its cogs/pulleys/rings and got lodged somehow and it broke when I started pedaling again. Used the chain tool to remove the broken link and put in one of the quick links to reconnect everything. Other time was on a group ride and one of the riders broke his chain. I used my chain tool to remove the broken link and gave him my quick link to put everything back together. Took a few minutes on the side of the road to get everything working again. But it was all resolved successfully. So people who think chains don't break on rides are living in some make believe fantasy land.

I broke one on a mountain bike ride when I missed a sudden shift to the granny.
My wife cracked one quick link a couple years ago. I remember one club ride
where someone broke a chain.

So I can't say chains don't break. But I can say that those are the only
incidents I remember since 1972, when I started adult riding. That includes
many hundreds of club rides with anywhere from three to a couple dozen people.
That includes my decades of running, then sagging a fair-sized century ride.
(We had up to 600 riders.)

So I'm talking about 3 chains in hundreds of thousands of rider miles, I'm sure. It's not a common event.

- Frank Krygowski

I had a really weird mishap with my original Dura Ace AX equipped bicycle back in the 1980s. I was sprinting along a busy road in Toronto Canada and hit a short piece of metal rod. I hit the rod on the end and it flipped up, struck my chain and drove the rivet part way out so that it woudldn't clear the front derailleur. I did not have a chain breaker that day but I was still able to ride the bicycle the few remaining miles home by pushing down on the one pedal and then back pedaling enough to pedal forward again = like a push then pull system.

Now the multi-tools re so small that you don't need to carry a spare chain breaker as that tool is part of the multi-tool. Indeed, if one is concerned to shave the last few grams from such a tool then they can remove any of the tools they don't need/want.

Cheers