Carbon,

I'm riding campagnolo since 2000 and so far I didn't got any problem.... But regarding chains... there is one advice that you should pay attention. Everytime you unmount your chain you MUST change the permalink.... If you just mount without changing this specific point on the chain will be weaker comparing with the rest of the chain...



Which

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Luiz Eng

I have broken a 9 speed Campy chain, a Taya or two, quite a few ShimaNO, a Sachs or two....and you will sometimes get a flat tire too...



My old motto...ride enough and you will crash

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What if the Hokey Pokey is what it is all about?

I have broken three Campy 10s Permalink chains in four years and in 16 years of racing leading up to that had only broken one other chain. I love Campy but their permalink 10 speed chains are not durable. I have not tested their new non-Permalink chains.

i'll repeat again what i've written before, that i think the 9sp and 10sp systems require a chain too narrow for the old-style press-fit master links. okay, sure, it's user error that causes the chain to break most of the time. but i've seen cases in which trained mechanics are the users who make the errors. it's just too easy to make a mistake when connecting these kinds of chains. back in the old 5sp days, when i started racing, the plates were thick, and the pins stuck out past the plate on either side. very little possibility of making a mistake that would lead to a failure. nowadays the tolerances are too tight.

there are two reasons why the connex link in the wippermann is the right kind of system. first, there is no possibility of user error when there is no press fit that has to be executed. and second, if you need to take your chain off with a shimano or campy, you've got to remount the chain with a second such master link (you can't break the chain at the master link with either of these press-fit systems), doubling the possibility of a problem.

wippermann isn't the only company that makes this style of chain, sachs makes one too. i have no quarrel with someone deciding on a sachs instead. but in my own view you're just riding a potential booby trap if you're riding 9sp or 10sp with a pressed-in connecting link, and that's based on my own cases of chain failures.

btw, i want to answer someone who previously asked a question about a wippermann connex link. when you're off the bike, looking at the chain from drive side, and the connex link is sitting on top of the cassette cog, the hole in the connex link should be facing forward, i.e., the factory pressed in pin should be rearward. if that is not clear, let me know and i'll restate it. and if you've got any shifting concerns about wippermann, what i'm talking about is only specific to an 11t cog, i.e., getting the connex link backwards will only affect the smoothness of the ride while on that particular cog.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I have campy 9sp and have never had a chain problem (although I did snap the rear derailleur once). I wasn't aware there were any special or master links. I know you have to replace the pins on Shimano, but wasn't aware of needing to do this on campy. I thought you could just break it anywhere and reconnect it - that's what the campy literature says that you get with a new chain. Let me know, cuz if I'm doing something wrong - I want to know.

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"It is better to just strike a straight blow with a crooked stick than to spend your whole life trying to straighten the damn thing out!" (Bill Oncken)

I have a 9sp campy chain on another bike and have never had problems with it. I believe the 9speed can be treated in the traditional break anywhere and reconnect fashion. It's just the 10 speed chain which is a little narrower where Campy started to get a little creative.

i'm using 'master link' in a sort of catch-all sense. in the old days, you'd break the chain anywhere and then just reconnect it. nowadays, with 9sp and up, there's a special mechanism, a special pin, a special set of pins, or plates, whatever, depending on the company, that you must use to reconnect the chain. and you can only use it once, according to each of these various companies (except for sachs and wippermann).

i fully expect that if i took a poll i'd find that 99 readers out of 100, or 499 out of 500, have no chain breakage problems. but considering the potential catastrophic nature of a chain break, it's quite a large failure rate, potentially. if i, as a bike manufacturer, had a downtube break on one customer per year out of 100 customers i'd sold a bike to, the CPSC would hang me by the balls and i'd be lucky to stay out of jail, let alone stay in business.

now, mind you, i have no idea what the failure rate of everybody's 9sp and 10sp chains is. but if i myself have broken two, and certain readers also report the experience, the failure rate seems to me that it might be pretty high. breaking a chain is not like cracking your handlebar tape. it's not like breaking a saddle rail, or the velcro on your cycling shoe not sticking. it's often a pretty bad crash.

so yes, i met with the head of wippermann's bike chain division last night for dinner (she's over here in america touring the magazines) and she gave me a new titanium chain to try. very nice. but frankly, when i've got 85kg of bike and rider going up a 20% grade, i'm not interested in 4oz here or there. i just want my chain not to break.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

That's what I thought - just break anywhere and reconnect, since I've done it about 10 times either to clean the chain or replace it. Just to be clear, this is the one stamped C9 on the sides. Use a $15 Park tool that presses the pin out & back in. I am not familiar with the 10sp - it must be a different design.

I broke a 10 speed Campy chain in the MIDDLE of the side plate. Right across the "1" in the c10 stamp. I was out of the saddle 50 meters from the finish line in a criterium going about 40mph. The failure hasn't stopped my use of their chain, but I agree with Dan in that the very potential for danger suggests a different solution should be created. I'm anxious to see ShimaNO's 10 speed chain.

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https://www.kickstarter.com/...bike-for-the-new-era

I think this is the case (that the 9sp is more traditional) but you may want to find out from a pro, to be on the safe side. Don't want to see anyone hurt from something read on the internet...

FWIW, each time one of my Campy 10s chains broke I started to notice some unusual drivetrain noise earlier in the ride. It took me three failures to learn the signs, but there were signs. I think the permalink started to self-destruct and I have a suspicion that the pins slowly separated from the permalink body. All failures were on training rides although one of them happened about 60 miles away from home. I haven't had a failure in the past two years as I now replace the chains twice a season.

On the upside my drivetrain is so much smoother then my old 8s dura-ace and my roommates new 9s dura-ace. There is really no comparison. Campy no longer sells permalink chains and once I run through my stock of old chains I look forward to using their new non-permalink chans. (I think they have a wipperman-style connector now.)

-Marc

Tomorrow, I pick up a new bike (which I ordered last March!). It has a Campy Record 10 speed gruppo. It comes, I'm sure, with a Campy chain. Am I going to have problems, or do you guys who brake chains really hammer? I'm a weak 58-year-old. I don't sprint. I go long and steady. In a recent half IM, I averaged 20.3 mph. On the flat straight-aways, I probably did 22-24 mph. I don't do big accelerations. I do climb lots of hills and get up out of the saddle, but I don't hammer. Will I have problems? Should I just go ahead and order the Wippermann chain?

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Do not take counsel of your fears.--Andrew Jackson