Chain Guard

Andy Schleck could lose the tour because he didn’t have a chain watcher to prevent his chain slipping off inner ring.

I remember at the 2007, hill climb championship, a competitors chain fell off – how he regretted saving 50grams by removing the front chain shifter to save weight – using just one chainring rather than two. All the way down to Devon, the last race of the season and ruined because you try to save 50 grams.

How much difference would 50grams make – well very little. Yet the cost is potentially huge. I could have told Andy Schleck don’t worry about 50 grams. It’s a shame it happened to him, but, it did make for another exciting stage.

I remember Jim Henderson once debating whether to save weight by just using 3 bolts in his chainring – rather than 5. He reckoned three bolts would still hold chainring and he could save weight of two bolts. In the end he reckoned the weight saving of two bolts wasn’t worth the risk of his chainring falling off mid race. So there you go – don’t worry too much about weight on a bike!

See: Saving weight on a bike