1. I know shimano road and mtb 10 speed chains are ‘different’, but will a road chain run okay on a mountain bike setup?
2. Do Sram have road and mtb chains or are they interchangeable?
3. What ‘thingy’ do you use to rejoin a chain out on the trail?

Thanks in advance

M

Don’t know about shimano but SRAM are interchangeable the higher the number the better the chain i.e better plating hollow pins, hollow side plates. But if your a harder rider try the heavier less machined chains. Ten speed chains use power locks and they are one use only.

Why are you sorry?

Cos it has come up before – I just cant find it with the search

For 10 speed chains use the KMC connectors, as they’re reusable unlike the sram ones which are one use only for 10 speed.

A road chain will run fine on an mtb, shimano do say to use a HG-X chain only but not sure why. I’m running a sram 10 speed with kmc connector on my shimano 10 speed chainset, and it runs fine. KMC make very good chains, and would have gone with them if sram chains weren’t cheap on CRC at the moment.

i run a Wipperman road chain on my dynasys shimano 10 speed with no issues. I use a 10 speed sram powerlink on it and ive used it probably 6 times to take the chain off. Its not single use. The Wipperman one is supposed to be single use. The KMC 10 speed chains are nice as well, ive used the KMC X10 and it lasted well.

I didn’t realise the 10 speed powerlocks came apart, sram say they are designed not to.

They are designed to be single use. You can get them apart, particularly if you have the quick link pliers, but they’re not designed to be reused. They’re already the weakest part of the chain, no point making them weaker IMO when KMC and Connex ones are actually designed to be reusable.

You can interchange road/MTB Shimano chains, shifting quality may be slightly diminished, but it’ll work fine. Equally you can use other brands of chain with no issues. I’ve used SRAM, KMC and Shimano, personally think the SRAM are overpriced, Shimano seem to outlast them, currently got an X10SL, which is light, but like the X9SL they don’t last.