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Tech Chain catcher

wexford

Maximum Pace
Jul 3, 2012
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Any recommendations on a chain catcher? Which one? Light, effective and works with ultegra.

I'm hobbling home after dropping my chain for the first time. It was well wrapped and hard to get off. Luckily I used a quick link which I was able to unwrap to and once I had that free, get untangled. Chain is bent though. Need another new one lol. Hopefully that's all the damage. Need to look when I get home.

Thanks for helping me get untangled @Chrisisism. will update the ride thread later.

Oh yeah, drop happened when I was riding the big ring under power and dropped it to the small and also flicked up two gears (smaller cogs) at the same time.
 
I use a K-Edge one. No dropped chains since fitting it. It will fit braze-on type front mech mounts and comes with the longer bolt needed.
It's slightly fiddly to set up as you have to first position the front mech, then get the chain catcher to the correct position, then tighten everything up. However, once fitted it doesn't need any adjustment.

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/k-edge-chain-catcher-double/
 
Thanks. Need to look but my dérailleur has a wrap around band which it is connected to via a bolt. So I guess the band kind of acts like the frame braze on. Need to check if they would use different catchers.
 
big ring under power and dropped it to the small and also flicked up two gears
That was the problem. Why they sudden shift of so much so soon? Better you learn to plan ahead and shift a bit more judiciously. No guarantee it won't happen again even with a chain catcher. You might still get chain suck.
 
I was charging at a roller near the top so I wanted the extra lower gears when momentum dropped. But yeah, probably a different technique would work more reliably.
 
I have used a Token one on two frames now without a single issue. Cost about 1,000yen.
 
Wexford's front mech is band-on, so the Token and K-Edge ones will not fit.

Something like a Deda Elementi Dog Fang chain catcher should work.

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Wexford's front mech is band-on, so the Token and K-Edge ones will not fit.

Something like a Deda Elementi Dog Fang chain catcher should work.
Got one of those, not flashy but does the job. Wont work with funky, non round seat tubes. When I first fitted it I had an odd problem with the crank which I traced to having the chainring bolts just touch the chain catcher. D'oh!
 
Cool. Thanks for all the great info. Got my bike working again. Needed a new chain. Old one (1 day old) was all bent. Lucky it didn't break really. Removed the front crank just to check the frame and it looks good. One small mark. Also inside of the crank has some deep scratching in one place but nothing to worry about. With new chain, it seems to run ok. Will have to try it on the road and see how it feels.

I'll check whether the deda one might work on my frame or not. It's a little fat down there although it is round.
 
Not a recommendation for you, just an observation: I have yet to drop a chain on a downshift with my triple, but see it all the time with people riding doubles (particularly compacts). The small gap in tooth counts on triple cranks largely eliminates the problem as the RD never has to take up that much slack at any one time.
 
Now that I think about what I did it makes sense that I kind of helped it off. Ie, Big to small on the front moves the front of the chain left and as you said creates slack until the rear mech grabs it. Big to small on the back moves the chain to the right on the back and again creates slack. So I had the chain traveling quickly diagonally left when you combine front and back movement and on top of that I had a slack chain. Will try not to do that again.
 
Bent chain. Sorry about the shit camera work.
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Bottom bracket got off lightly. Whew.
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The back is a bit torn but not too bad at all
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before you test ride, you may want to check to see that you got the direction of the chain right. some Ultegra chains are unidirectional.
 
LOL. @ninjagoat came out of hiding! Chain is on right. I've done it two days in a row now. Hope to see you on a ride soon.
 
AFAIK Shimano 11 speed chains are unidirectional and so are the 10 speed Ultegra chains except the triple version. Different shape on the left and right to match the cassette on one side and the ramps and pins on the other for more easily climbing up bigger cogs.
 
Not a recommendation for you, just an observation: I have yet to drop a chain on a downshift with my triple, but see it all the time with people riding doubles (particularly compacts). The small gap in tooth counts on triple cranks largely eliminates the problem as the RD never has to take up that much slack at any one time.
You see it all the time? Who on earth do you ride with? A chain catcher is not to be used to solve chain drops - that's where adjusting the FD correctly comes into play. The catcher is there just in case the chain does happen to for some strange reason take a dive. Triples aren't a solution to the problem anyway as they're a bit hand sandwich on a road bike, aren't they?
 
I have yet to drop a chain on a downshift with my triple, but see it all the time with people riding doubles (particularly compacts). The small gap in tooth counts on triple cranks largely eliminates the problem as the RD never has to take up that much slack at any one time.

I've done it on my triple. There was a gap of 21 teeth. It was really stupid: one time while using the big ring I was daydreaming and somehow my brain/arm/hand/fingers thought I was riding the other bike (double), on which I just slam the lever all the way one way or all the way the other way. So slam it I did: all the way from the 49 to the 28 position, with predictable results.
 
Triples aren't a solution to the problem anyway as they're a bit hand sandwich on a road bike, aren't they?

I specifically said I wasn't offering it as a recommendation, only that I had never seen the problem on my triple in what after all has been 31,000 km so far. It's not a simple as being able to blame all dropped chains on misadjusted FDs. Switching to a smaller chain ring on a compact creates 16T of chain slack that the RD has to take up. On a road triple (50/39/30) that's never more than 11, significantly less.

I wouldn't claim that my recent experience is representative, but of the last three times I rode with other people (different ones each time), on two a person riding with me dropped a chain on his double and that's when it occurred to me that this is something that simply never happens on my bike.

"A bit hand sandwich"? Could you please translate that for me?

Maybe they're not for you, but triples serve a purpose for some cyclists as they offer a wide gear range with relatively narrow steps in between. Doubles either offer a smaller range or bigger jumps. Doubles have other advantages and manufacturers have gradually reduced the available choices with triples (not primarily for technical reasons, in my opinion).
 
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