This is a Campagnolo Record Ultra Narrow bicycle chain:
Like all things Campagnolo, all 65 trillion moving parts were hand assembled by ascetic vegan monks in Vicenza Italy. It does a pretty good job of getting power from the cranky bit in front (that would be me) to the wheel-y bit in the back.
This is a Park CT-3 chain tool.
If not the gold-plated Bentley of chain making-and-breaking technology, it’s at least the Toyota Vitz. Gets the job done. For example, this is just the ticket to remove the chain from ones bike before flying halfway around the world for a wedding. Then reassemble said chain, ride like a maniac around the Seattle countryside, and break the chain again to come right on back home to NZed.
Sadly, when Mr Park and Mrs Campy Record meet, the chemistry is anything but magical. Unless you consider having your chain detonate into a bazillion pieces magical.
It has been impressed upon me that Campagnolo chains are not to be touched without a papal dispensation. And certainly not with my proletarian chain tools. Indeed, a conventional chain tool will shear some rather important flanges off the pins, leading to sudden and dramatic chain failure, oh, this Wednesday.
Rather, I needed to use something called a Record Ultra Narrow HD-Link Kit which contains a packet of little dehydrated silence-vowing jam-growing Italian monks to reassemble your chain for you.
Sadly, I learned this lesson while high on a ridgeline, 25 kms from home, battered by a winter wind and ready to lie down for the long sleep.
Much like this. Except I didn’t get a tasteful pink jersey at the end of my ride.
Truly, I have never been closer to taking up curling as when the cranks suddenly spun free, and I turned to see my chain laid out as roadkill on the chipseal behind me.
Lesson one: Italian design is inscruptible. Install a Shimano chain.
This is the buckle on my cycling shoes. Yes, my cycling shoes have buckles. And velcro. No, I don’t know why. They’re also from Italy.
This is also a buckle from my cycling shoes, except this one took the full force of a car bumper slamming into my foot. My foot (and the rest of me) escaped unscathed, but this buckle will, sadly, never “click-click-click” again.
This buckle was clearly not made by wine-stomping vespers-chanting monks, because it’s user-serviceable. Yep, I just trundled on down to the cycling shoppe and got a new one (see above) and fixed it meself. Cheap, too.
Lesson two: Not all Italian design is totally inscruptible. I (heart) Sidi.
So what conclusion are we draw from today’s lessons? Don’t let me work on your bikes, for one.
Postscript: How did I get home after my chain exploded? Used the even grungier, less papally approved chain tool in my saddle bag to excise the damaged links and reassemble the chain, causing further grievous harm to the chain’s self-esteem. Then gingerly pedaled home. Miss Campy Record, meet Herr Wastebin.
