It’s a rare occurrence. Have a look for the root cause. There used to be the Pamir Hypercracker which worked well. Not sure if it would work with bolt through or the deeper splines on a xD type cassette though.
**Edit**
They mostly come from an era of steel frames and vertical dropouts and could cause damage on modern lightweight frames due to increased leverage.
What hub do you have? It would have been tricky, but a lot of them, the freehub can pull off ones the axle is undone. It only needs a mm extra to get the chain out.
I have one of those NBT’s that I carry when touring, never used it. I did managed to get the chain stuck twixt cassette and spokes one time when off road. I used a couple of medium cable ties to get purchase on the chain and rip it back out.
It is best to have the limits properly set but you know that already and sometimes you still get overshift e.g. bent hangar etc.
Re-lace your wheel so it can’t happen, look at that one in martinhutch’s pic, the drive side pulling spokes are on the outside, which means when the chain jumps off the tension and the angle of the spoke pulls it in and jams it. Lace it with them on the inside and it’s much easier to get out.
Well no I don’t. As above sort out the issue that caused it to happen. Shouts poor maintenance to me and a bit of poor mechanical sympathy.
I suppose not riding would solve the issue of it getting knocked off by sticks/rocks and hangers being bent.
MadBillMcMad – Member
Out riding last night and my chain got jammed between wheel and cassette.
There was nothing I could do but carry the bike home.
So this got me wondering about longer trips and what to do.
These things can happen when you take your bike into “interesting” places offroad – or because of a crash or poor maintenance on a purely road bike.
Simple answer for long trips – reliable hubgear or singlespeed and never have another transmission problem. 🙂
Re-lace your wheel so it can’t happen, look at that one in martinhutch’s pic, the drive side pulling spokes are on the outside, which means when the chain jumps off the tension and the angle of the spoke pulls it in and jams it. Lace it with them on the inside and it’s much easier to get out.
I have wheels laced like that. If you try to re-lace them different, you end up using the spoke holes a different way. This is not advised because the aluminium deforms around the spoke hole to fit the spoke so deforming it at roughly a right angle to that will introduce weakness. Well, that is what I read, I have no idea how important a factor it is, but it appears reasonable to me. Also, I am not sure how important the lacing is to chain jamming, marginal I would think.
This can happen to the best maintained bike if you are unlucky.
Can’t say I’ve ever seen a cassette tool that’s operated via an allen key and not a whacking great spanner, but that’s what you want.
You could just carry the tool and use your multitool then.
Maybe one can be fashioned.
What if you took your cassette tool as above there and drilled a hole right through it from spanner flat to flat, big enough to fit an allen key all the way through to get some turning purchase.
Then, the ghetto chain whip option is to use another allen key/stout twig to put against the cassette teeth and (obviously only an emergency situation) jam against the spokes where they meet the hub, and undo.
The nbt2 is the best you’re going to find I think… I’m not aware of anything else like it, and it does work, I’ve seen one used in the wild and everything. 🙂
How do alloy gear hangers deal with the nbt2? There’s a large amount of torque being applied when releasing the lockring. I know that the documentation says you should ensure that the lockring hasn’t been tightened by a gorilla.
A lightweight chainwhip would, I imagine, be the sticking point in this plan.
I can’t imagine any scenario short of a solo expedition somewhere very remote I’d ever consider it a trail tool. If it can get in there, you can get it out.
I’ve seen a few chain jammed betwixt spokes and cassette issues before – but never ever one where the chain couldn’t somehow be pulled out of the jam.
Undo the chain with a chain tool, wrap it around your (gloved) hand and pull/wiggle/yank/tug it out.
Never ever seen the requirement to remove a cassette out in the wild. Tighten one up yes, but I’ve done that with needle-nose pliers, enough to complete a ride.
@DezB – the reason for the nbt2 is to remove the cassette to be able to replace a broken spoke on the drive side. Not a common occurrence IME. There’s also the Fiberfix spoke that lets you get somewhere with a more comprehensive toolkit. Seems to be pretty good – someone tested it by removing a spoke and riding around for a couple of weeks and it held true.
Edit: both products are aimed at those who head far from backup where you might be several days from being able to fix things properly.
Nice. Can I propose “Fred Frisbee”? Or is “Fred” too much of an American thing?
Anyway, it seems the ideal solution since it weighs next to nothing and is preventative. Generally I’ve found that if a chain gets pulled into the spokes so hard that you can’t get it out with a little work and an allen key or something (I’ve never seen a chain drop that hasn’t been recoverable on the trail) you’ve probably gouged a couple of spokes pretty hard anyway.
NBT2 should do the job on a suitable frame, though. Might even work for Centerlock discs, I guess*, which would be a bonus.
Relace your wheels with DT240 or DT350 hubs. Not only are they the best on the market, but the freehub just pulls off the axle by hand, no tools required. Also no seals to oush back into place and no pawls on springs to go missing so you’d be fine to do it out on the trail.
That Fibrefix looks good. I’ve been carrying some adjustable spokes around the bottom of my guiding pack for years, but now with 24, 26, 27.5 and 29″ wheels, they are next to useless. The NBT2 thing is fine except it won’t work with bolt-through axles, so that’s almost all modern mountain bikes.
I’ve got a pamir hypercracker. works fine, if you can get it past the mech etc. Not sure I’d want to be using it on a carbon frame though. If I’m fettling in the garage, I use a proper tool not the hypercracker