Brand new group set the xt 10 speed chain has broken on me twice now does anyone have any tips on new chains etc

I would say you may have a defective chain or a more likely cause is that the chain has not been joined correctly. Did it snap were the chain was joined – should be easy to tell as the joining pins will look different from the all the other pins.

Done some searching and apparently the xt chains don’t like being shortened with out the serperate pins being used so I am now guessing you can’t willy mildly shorten then with existing pins?

My old chains have lasted so many years (old xt 8speed) lot of learning curves as haven’t bought new gear for nearly a decade

aye, you need to use the correct pins. and IIRC XT chains are directional.

Yep, I wouldn’t re-use a pin on a 9 or 10 speed chain. Either use the special joining pin or even better use a quicklink. I’ve found KMC ones work well on the Shimano 10 speed chains.

I’d dump the XT chain and get a KMC one. I think they work much better.

yep got the chain line and direction just the the pins I was unaware of (new lesson learnt) ditched the XT chain now going for a sram see how that goes heard they pair up well with XT drive chain too and I will use a quick link

cheers lad

My XT 10 speed chain only lasted a few rides, SRAM PC1091 chain solved the problem for me and works fine with XT drive train.

Velomanic – your last post I could have written that, same story.

Do you use the quick link with the sram?

Whats a joining pin?

I have only ever just popped out one in the chain shortened it to suit and popped it back again.. Only 9 speed though.

yep got the chain line and direction just the the pins I was unaware of (new lesson learnt) ditched the XT chain now going for a sram see how that goes

Uh-oh. I bust SRAM 10 speed chains almost weekly, I switched to Shimano and it’s been good for some time, even on a SRAM cassette and rear mech. No more SRAM-money-down-the-pan for this boy.

There was a spate of brittle outer plates on chains a while back which caused fractures and breakages. It was mainly shimano road 10spd but I’ve had two incidents on KMC 9 speed chains in the last year.

Uh-oh. I bust SRAM 10 speed chains almost weekly,

What the hell do you do with them? – you maybe need to get someone to look at your technique 😉

1 snapped chain in 20 or so years here

tinsy – a joining pin is what you use to connect chains they come in a long length then when its inserted in you snap of the extruding end yes I used to just pop out the pins too only 8 speed from a decade ago seems as tho they don’t make em like they used to with narrower chains and what not

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=shimano+joining+pin&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&biw=1630&bih=907&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=J8tJUIHfAaqS0QX894CwAQ

Uh-oh. I bust SRAM 10 speed chains almost weekly, I switched to Shimano and it’s been good for some time, even on a SRAM cassette and rear mech. No more SRAM-money-down-the-pan for this boy.

I will give the sram a try at least

Uh-oh. I bust SRAM 10 speed chains almost weekly, I switched to Shimano and it’s been good for some time, even on a SRAM cassette and rear mech. No more SRAM-money-down-the-pan for this boy.

yeah what do you do to snap a chain the only reason mine snapped was my fault for not installing properly maybe your chain line is way off or worn parts or you are in fact a beast machine when it comes to power!!

I don’t know. I ran SRAM 9 speed for years with only the odd breakage, no more than reasonable. I built a new bike (Cotic Soul) last October on SRAM 2×10 and the chain breakage became a joke. I’m not a super power rider. All the kit was SRAM.

I happily used the whole cassette in both chainrings because 2×10 is supposed to be able to do that. (But the chain looks often times fairly S shaped to me). Anyway I didn’t run the extremes frequently, just the odd few moments, and they weren’t when the chains broke either.

This was 2 different chains, bought at different times and joined with the supplied Powerlink or whatever they call the 10 speed version.

I can only report what happened, and that’s what happened. So often it became a joke amongst my riding buddies.

Shimano peen the ends of the pins on their chains, have done for as long as there has been HG at least.
This means when you push the pin out using your chain tool, that the hole in the outer link is now slightly larger. As a result you need to use a specific replacement pin which is bigger to fit the larger hole (these are specific to the chain width, so it needs to be appropriate for 8/9/10spd MTB chains).
The pin iteslf is twice the width of the original and you push the whole thing through and then snap the end off once in place.