Bike Maintenance 101 - How to Fix a Bike Chain

Auckland Transport have put together a series of "How To" videos showing you simple bike maintenance that will help keep your bike in safe working order.

Hi, my name is Rob and I'm here to show you how to fix a broken chain. Count the number of sprockets in your cassette here. If they number eight or up to eight, we'll use this technique to fix the chain, if you have more than eight we'll use a split link, which is an extra link that fits together by hand, the two male ends of the chain to fix your chain. When you need to fix a broken chain on your bike you're going to have to do it in-situe on your bike. To help, you can use these little tools to help give a little bit of slack in the chain. For demonstration purposes I'm going to use this bit of broken chain. As you can see, my chain is broken and what I'm now going to have to do is take a link out of the chain to be able to make two ends. I'm going to use this chain tool, to push out one of the pins nearly all the way; making sure it doesn't go out. From there I can remove the broken link and I now have a male and female end of the chain ready to be refitted together. To do so, they fit together and I reuse my chain tool to push the pin back into the chain. Once it's back in it might very well be stiff, so push it into a point and work it sideways until it's nice and loose, the same as the rest of the chain. It is worth noting that if you take a link out of your chain, your chain will be slightly shorter, it's well worth going to your local bike shop, to check your chain isn't too short, because if it is a little bit too short it can have adverse effects on your gears. That's how you fix a broken chain!