Originally Posted by
carleton
- The master link is your friend. Learn how to use it.
- Most (if not all) modern chains are NOT designed to have pins removed and re-added. USE THE MASTER LINK. Old-school chains were designed for this. Every chain failure that I know of personally was with a chain that had a pin removed and reinstalled. If you cut your chain too short, don't re-add the links.
On narrow road chains with a decent Master link design, like Wipperman, I fully embrace the link, but some new chains still do not come with Master Links, like KMC, so I naturally forego the Master Link and hard pin those chains. I haven't noticed a difference in failure rates, but when a chain with a Master Link fails it is normally the Master Link which fails, which would lead me to believe it is the weakest link. As a result, I'm not all that comfortable with the idea of using a Master Link on a track bike. (Hey, I might be overly cautious since I still use lock rings
)
I also would be concerned about the braking force (not breaking force) working against some tension-based Master Links. Although the bolt-style Master Link design of the Izumi V Supertoughness, can't fail in a negative tension situation, I can't imagine myself trusting that little nut holding tight while I'm sprinting on a track. As a result, my Izumi V is hard pinned.