Hollow Pointless

Have you ever had a chain snap on you? It's not fun. Usually it happens when you're really stepping into it, which makes the results that much worse. Knee to the stem, thigh to the crossbar, usually you go over the bars. If you're lucky, you land on your hands instead of your head. If you're not lucky, it happens when you're trying to sprint through a busy intersection and you get run over by a bus. Either way, it's not much fun. But hey, chains break. It happens.

That said, isn't the chain the last thing you'd want to lighten up on purpose? There was a time not so long ago when BMX chains were judged the same way hip-hop chains were: Heavier was better. There was the KMC 415h (or Kink chain) and the massive Sharp 420—which was better suited for a motorcycle or a garage door opener. Had things continued in that direction, we'd all be riding chains that look something like this (minus the feet):


They didn't continue like that, of course. Gearing dropped, so you didn't need to worry about your 45 bashing into everything anymore. And with chainrings out of harm's way, chains were free to get lighter. People went with traditional KMCs, like 410s, 510s and 710s. But that wasn't good enough. Oh no. Road chains had long used drilled-out pins and hollow plates. Izumi made a hollow-plate BMX/track chain back in the day. Why not do the same with new BMX chains? So KMC introduced the 710sl:


It came in at 365 grams as compared to 420 (!!!) grams for the regular 710 (according to Fat). Not much of a difference—less than two ounces. Of course it comes with enough links to run 48/16, so the weight difference is presumably less if you're running 28/10 or lower. And it, um, looks cool.

There are differences between road and BMX, however. Small as BMX drivetrains are, the chains still take hits every once in a while. And running it on a eight-, nine- or 10-tooth driver places a lot of stress on the chain, even if it doesn't have drilled-out plates and hollow pins. KMC can give you numbers for "pin power" and "breakload" all they want, but those don't take into account bashing a drilled-out link on a rail or ledge and then cranking full-out towards something else.

Look, I appreciate that plenty of people run drilled-out chains, and a majority of them are still very much alive. But of all the things to drill out, the part on your bike that arguably takes the most stress? What's next? Steerer tubes? Pedal spindles? Heck, even the Grim Reaper makes more sense to me than this. There are certain things I'd rather not see drilled out. Chains. Stem bolts. Forks. Anything that, if it snaps, will probably send me to the hospital or the dentist. And even barring injury, I'm not a big fan of liamfahyhamptoning around. So I like my chains like I like my teeth and my Alaskan wildlife preserves—undrilled.

(Of course, seeing that half-link chains have seemed to have more problems with snapping than regular chains, there's no way anyone would come out with a drilled-out halflink chain. Well, no one except KHE. Lovely.)





P.S. Sean Burns only rides Wipperman chains. Their 1G8 is apparently the strongest chain on the market, according to—um, them. This video has nothing to do with chains, but a minute of Sean Burns never hurt anybody. Well, except him.

Little Things

Just a couple quick hits before the weekend. First, from the people who brought you the Punisher and the Soldier and Ojay Juarez, I give you this:

I suppose people are gonna run carbon headset spacers anyway, so Mutiny may as well offer their own (read: generic ones screenprinted with their logo), and maybe it's just some sort of a joke on the weight weenies, but you KNOW at least some people out there are stoked on this. So now you can run 8.25" rise bars with a topload stem and eight carbon spacers along with your slammed seat (so your bike looks something like this). I keep waiting for some company to produce a frame with an eight-inch tall headtube.

(On the topic of weight, what are the chances of bulimia catching on amongst BMXers? It's amazing that everyone wants to make their bike as light as possible but doesn't think about their own bodies. You can save WAY more weight by puking up your Burger King than you can by changing out your aluminum headset spacers for carbon ones. Heck, for that matter you could save more weight by taking a quarter out of your pocket. If you insist on taking the weight off the bike, take two pins out of your pedals. Oh, that's right, no one runs metal pedals anymore.)


The next product I actually like. It's a halflink made by Wipperman and sold by Superstar. I've never run a halflink myself, but if I did, I think I'd rather run a single halflink than an entire chain made of them. My problem isn't with the product itself, or even with the oh-so-Euro apres-ski product shot:


My problem is this: Superstar actually listed the WEIGHT of the halflink. Which would be .3 ounces, or eight grams. First of all, the only thing that BMXers need to be measuring in grams is cocaine. Secondly, what does it matter, really? Will anyone who uses this halflink be weighing the regular links they remove and calculating the total weight savings?

I'm surprised Dan's Comp hasn't started selling postal scales and calculators.