Chains and rain…

It’s been a bit on the wet side for the last few days here in Honolulu. Here’s a cheap trick shot in which you should be able to see a bit Diamond Head but, because of the curtain of rain, well…

So, as you might imagine, I’ve been getting wet lately. My Hunq has been handling the wet weather really well and I feel quite safe, unless of course, the weather is so bad I can’t be seen. It happens.
But things were not quite right. In the past week I’d begun to notice a wee bit of trouble shifting. As I’ve not adjusted the derailleurs since I received the bike in October I thought perhaps a bit of cable stretching or some such had gone on and figured I’d do a bit of work this weekend.
Not to be.
On Wednesday while on my way downtown to cover a shift on a volunteer phone line my shifting went all to heck and was followed quite quickly by a sudden lurch as my chain parted. I swore, picked up the chain and put it in a plastic bag I had with me, and hoofed the mile and a half to my shift. Naturally it was raining so…yep…I arrived quite soaked, even with a rain jacket. I do wear clothes that are quick to dry so it wasn’t a huge problem, but given I’ve got a cold right now…well…unpleasantness all around really.
Luckily I had a chain tool with me so I was able to make a repair sans a couple of links while at the office.
Now I know once a chain has parted it’s on its last legs so I figured I’d have to pick up a new one the next day. I also needed to renew my driver’s license downtown and figured I could make it a few miles on the repaired chain, after all, I’d gotten home just fine the night before.
So after work I went home on a fairly direct route to pick up my passport which is valid id for renewals in Hawaii. I didn’t read the entire instructions though.
I headed downtown, about three miles, in the rain of course. So far so good. At the satellite city hall I was told I also needed my Social Security card. Really? They’ll let me in and out of the US and into most any place I care to go with a valid US passport but I can’t get a licensed renewed? Yep.
So it was back home in hurry to get my card. Wouldn’t you know it, after the three miles back in the rain my chain parted again, right in front of my apartment building. That was a blessing though. It left me time to get my card and hurry back on my moped…in the rain.
The upshot is that I got my renewal, got wet, and, on the way back, got a new chain.
My but the chain was expensive. My Hunq runs a 9-speed cluster in the back so at the first (?) LBS I asked and was handed a nice Shimano chain priced at $40. Okay, $39.99. That’s silly I thought and asked for something a little less pricey. They didn’t have one. Keep in mind, I don’t use index shifting and while the Shimano LX derailleur is fine, it’s not super high end.
Off I went to my favorite place, McCully Bicycles. They had a nice new chain, Shimano as well, at around $23. That was much more reasonable. In fact they also had the same chain I could have purchased for $40 at $34. To give them a little more business I opted for the $34 chain, even though I’d have been fine with the $23.
Back home, after more rain, I cleaned the bike up a bit and put on the new chain. I noticed that my old chain was a PC951 by SRAM. I use SRAM 8 speed chains some other bikes I own and have never had a problem with breakage so I figured this one was just a bit off. No worries.
Today when I rode to work I got a big surprise. My shifting is a lot smoother than it had been in the past, even before I started having problems. I’m not going to say it’s because I’m running Shimano with Shimano, but there does seem to be a difference. Perhaps I’m just not remember how smooth things were when I first received my Hunq. Still I does seem smoother than I ever recall. Food for thought.
I’m thinking I’ll probably get go back to the SRAM PC951 at around $15 next time around and see if the difference is real or just in my head. I’m cheap, no two ways about it. But if the difference is real, I know what the next chain will be. Of course this doesn’t change what I’m doing with the bikes that work fine with the 8-speed SRAMS.
Aloha from damp Honolulu!