Premium quality mountain bike chains last a long time and ensure a smooth ride allowing you to send it with total confidence every time you blast the trail. There’s plenty of choice for 11-speed chains and the KMC X11 half nickel-coated chain is a good option. With this technique, you don’t need to unpack the replacement chain from its container before you can do the chain sizing. You need to move it to the point where the chain can move freely into the smallest sprocket, but can go no further than that.

21-Speed Bike Gears Explained: Benefits and Shifting 21-Speed Bike Gears Explained: Benefits and Shifting

When a bike is labeled as having 21 speeds, it means that the bike has a drivetrain with 21 different gear combinations that can be achieved by using the shifters. KMC chains are put through tough field tests to ensure they last longer than equivalent models from other brands.

The links are highly worked, with tapered side plates and KMC’s X-Bridge tech which it says makes for snappier shifting. However, if you’re not maintenance minded, cheap chains that wear quickly can lead to expensive repairs. When I was twenty I thought he was a reactionary old goat; many years later I see that he indeed had a point.

21 Speed Bike Gears Explained (Understanding Your Bicycle) 21 Speed Bike Gears Explained (Understanding Your Bicycle)

The cassette system uses a cassette that slides onto the rear hub, and the individual sprockets can be replaced, allowing for greater customization. Next, pull it across and loop it over the rear cassette and round the upper jockey wheel on the derailleur. Sooner or later, any avid cyclist will have the chain on their bicycle come loose or break altogether.The large and small chainrings are intended for extreme circumstances: large hills or fast road riding. In some chains, there can be a separate bushing on either side of the roller, although these are usually absent from modern chains. Finally, once your chain securely passes all the way through your gear system, you can join the 2 ends of the chain and start riding again. It’s not something that can be done with a drivetrain with multiple chainrings, because the position in which the chain will land when shifted between chainrings can’t be determined, so the teeth in double and triple chainrings all have the same width, designed to mesh with the narrower inner-chain link. Finally, the single-gear system, as the name suggests, only has one chainring on the front crankset and a single rear sprocket.