ZappoMan.com - Fitness Blog

Cranking it Up!

April 2nd, 2007

After finishing the Chilly Hilly bike ride on my Redline 925 (fixie) I decided that my 42/14 gearing just wasn’t a big enough gear. I was getting tired of having to pedal at 150rpms to go down hill at 26mph, and frankly I just didn’t feel like I was getting enough of a strength workout with the standard gear ratio. So I embarked on another one of my it’ll only cost $5 if I use recycled parts projects… remember the handlebars?

So, here’s what it took to swap out my 42T chain ring with a bigger gear…

First of all, I strolled past my local used bike parts store “Recycled Cycles”. This is where I bought my Redline 925, and the crew there is pretty helpful, usually knowledgeable, very “crunchy” (as my highbrow friends say), and mostly hardcore fixie riders. When I told them I wanted to upgrade my 42T to something bigger they were more excited than I was. The pointed me to the box of $5 chain rings and said “go for it”.

The first challenge was to find the right size. They have their parts relatively well organized, but you’re still dealing with a random box of parts. And unfortunately most of the chain rings weren’t labeled with the number of teeth, so I was going to have to count them to find the right one. I was able to narrow down the suspects by sorting them into sizes visually, then I found a couple rings labeled 52T so I could put back anything that big or bigger. Eventually I found the 48T 110mm BCD chain ring I was looking for.

In case you were wondering, when you go out to buy a new chain ring there are a few things you need to know. The number of teeth you’re looking for, and the spacing of the crank bolts. This bolt spacing is usually listed as a millimeter distance (as in my case a 110mm BCD). Sometimes this is labeled as: “110″, “110mm”, “110 BCD”, or “110mm BCD”.

Great… I found what I wanted… only $5, so head home, and put in on the bike. Right?

Yeah right!

This is what I discover when I replace my chain ring with the new bigger chain ring. Now I distinctly remember asking the guys at the shop “is there anything else I need to be aware of? Any other parts I’m going to need?” This might have been a good time for them to mention (what I guess they assumed was obvious, and in retrospect it should have been) that a bigger chain ring is going to require more chain. Ahh… I knew it couldn’t be that simple!

Alright, so my bike is up on blocks till I can get some more parts. The next day I stop at a different store while riding my road bike for a little afternoon 40miler. This shop “Ti Cycles” is also very helpful, not as crunchy, the owners are a little older I think and have a different, still cool, but not as edgy vide to them. I stopped there because it was on the trail that I was riding on (location, location, location) and my feet were cold and I needed to pick up some new booties. So while I was there I decided to buy the parts to lengthen my chain.

The owner was very helpful, and actually gave me an extra length of chain to add to my chain. Since I didn’t have my bike with me, we had to guess what size chain my bike had. Note: if you ever want to go buy parts for your bike, bring your bike along, so you can make sure you’re getting the right parts. He explained all the details of what I needed to do. I also needed to buy a chain tool (but he convinced me not to buy the one he had for sale, and suggested I get a cheaper one at another store). So, now the project is up to: extra chain links $0 (free), removable chain links $5 each x2… chain tool… TBD.

After completing 40 miles in the rain and hail, I finished my ride by rolling into a third shop close to the trail. They had a “value priced” chain tool available for $15. So now my total is up to $30 for the whole package…. let’s see if I can get it working.

Here is the step by step process of lengthening your chain…

1) Using your chain tool, push one of the link-pins almost completely out of the link. Be careful not to push it all the way out of the link. If you keep it in the link you will be able to reuse this pin when you add additional links to your chain.

2) Be careful not to push the pin all the way through. If you accidentally remove the pin all the way, you will probably need to get a “replacement pin” or a “removable link”.

3) Assuming you didn’t push the pin too far through, you should end up with a “broken” chain, with one pin still partially in place. And it will look like this:

4) Insert a section of your extra length of chain like this:

5) Now you want to reset that pin. At first I tried to use my chain tool… essentially using it in reverse. It seemed like a good idea, but it didn’t work, actually I think the pin was so stuck that it bent my tool. Cheap tool, is probably the problem. So then I pulled out my pliers and went to town. I’m not sure if this is the right thing to do, but it seemed to work. Pushing and Squeezing I finally got the pin reset. There were several large pops and crunches as the pin went back into place. This had me nervous, but when it was done things seemed pretty sturdy and nice and flexible in the link, so, I guess it worked. I did use the chain tool to push the pin in the last couple millimeters.

6) Now I still have a “broken” chain, but it’s much longer… in fact, plenty long enough for my bigger chain ring. So I remount the chain and check out how many links I can remove to make everything fit.

7) Because I’m adding a “master link” or a “removable link” I actually remove 3 links off the extra chain, making sure to leave the smaller/inside links on either end of the chain so that my master link will fit. Here’s my master link installed.

8 ) Ta da! Here’s the finished product.

So after all of this I was rolling again now with 48/15 fixed or 48/16 freewheel. So this means my 6.0 meter “development” with the 42T chain ring is now a 6.9 meter “development” with the 48T chain ring. When I’m riding freewheel, it’s a 6.4 meter development.

One final note: Since I completed the upgrade, I rode approximately 100 mile, and then this afternoon I discovered one of the bolts that holds the chainring to the cranks was missing. Bad news! No problem though I just rolled down to Recycled Cycles and they fixed it up. The moral of the story is MAKE SURE YOU TIGHTEN ALL THE BOLTS! Thank goodness it didn’t come off while I was leaning hard into a hill climb.

Entry Filed under: Fitness, Triathlon, Ironman, Cycling, fixie, single-speed, fixed-gear, bike maintenance, exercise