Following a farcical attempt at a bike ride this morning (involving my improperly fitted powerloc pinging across the car park never to be seen again) I needed something to re-attach my chain. I went into a bike shop this afternoon to get a missing link. The guy there told me if I’ve already got one in the chain I shouldn’t put another as it will weaken it and that I’d be better off buying another chain, I politely declined and bought the links anyway, I’ve done it before and never had any issues – a search of this forum suggests many here hold the same view.

… but its bugging me, is there even a sliver of logic in this? I thought they were supposed to be stronger than a regular link. It’s a series problem rather than parallel, hence the expression “a chain is only as good as its weakest link”. Even if they were slightly weaker than a regular chain link then surely the probability of a breakage doesn’t increase significantly with each one you add…

Nope – no logic to it at all. No reason why not to have more than one powerlink. For example my tandem has a timing chain that is 1.5 normal chains long. Impossible to do without two powerlinks ( unless I do the old school push a pin out and refit)

Did you buy the powerlink off ebay? There’s loads of fakes on there.

He’s talking bollocks.

The only logic I can possibly credit is that if the chain has reached a point where it is randomly breaking normal links, then I wouldn’t trust the remaining ones. The powerlinks have never failed me.

No he’s talking rubbish mate! You could replace every other link with a power link and it would be fine. My LBS has had a bike in where a young chap had done it! 😆

Yeah not a dodgy eBay link, the chain is a 10 speed SRAM job, I broke it so i could pack the chain in a tuperware (threw the bike in the car for a trip to the inlaws so it needed to be cleaner). Would have been fine with a powerlink rather than stupid powerloc.

Which isn’t really possible anymore with modern chains, as ALL the pins are mushroomed or peened over to a degree these days. Might get away with a) a tandem as there is very little side loading and b) an old 7 or 8 speed, which will be ok on a tandem timing chain, no gears to make life difficult!

the “logic” is to sell you a new chain…

Think I once had 4 in one (9-speed) chain.

Did you buy the powerlink off ebay? There’s loads of fakes on there.

Who goes into business thinking, today i’m going to make fake power links? 😯

I remember stripping seven of them out of an old chain when I retired it.

I seem to recall the logic of it was that if your chain starts breaking links it’s likely that it’s worn to death and as is should wear evenly adding links is a waste of time, more links will fail soon anyway rather than some evil magic that causes chains to melt if they forced to accept more than one.

Hogwash. I’ve frequently used chains with several powerlinks in them. My Brompton currently has two and the timing chain on the tandem is basically made up of all the leftover bits of chain I had in the spares pile so it’s got loads.

Who goes into business thinking, today i’m going to make fake power links?

Have you seen the RRP on them now compared to several years back, would swear they’ve gone up in price by about 500%

Probably quite a lucrative wee earner, especially if you’ve just snaffled a box load or two from the factory (that’s how a lot of these ‘fakes’ end up on eBay isn’t it?)

the last time i did the three peaks my (virtually new) sram chain exploded just before the last climb up pen-y-ghent. luckily i had a chain tool and a couple of powerlinks, so basically i bodged the chain together with about three of them and was able to finish the race.

Mat was this the shop on holborn street that might happen to not be the one that doesnt use the street name in its own name ……

Probably quite a lucrative wee earner, especially if you’ve just snaffled a box load or two from the factory (that’s how a lot of these ‘fakes’ end up on eBay isn’t it?)

I don’t think there’s a over riding route to market for this sort of stuff.

China is fairly ‘relaxed’ about patent laws, shall we say.

Some things are straight fakes, there’s a industry based on finding over-priced odds and sods and copying them – there’s quite a few little things in the cycling industry that costs pennies to make and sell for folding money because the market will pay it, same goes for IT stuff and bits for consumer electronics. They can be decent quality, after-all if SRAM swallow the design costs for you, you can probably produce a decent quality power link, unpackaged powerlink for a few pence and sell at £2 a pair or whatever they are. The problem with these, iPhone screens and bits, PSUs for PCs etc is quickly the market gets flooded and it’s a straight race to zero to undercut he next guy on Amazon so the quality goes to shit quickly.

Then there the ‘afterhours’ stuff – supposedly you buy production in China almost off the shelf – you find a factory, give them a design and QC target and they bang them out on a price per unit, so any that fail QC the ‘maker’ doesn’t have to pay for – but apparently the factories are known to either sell the better failed QC units – supposedly like the recent serial number missing RS stuff or even compete whole production runs using their customers designs and sell them under the counter to wholesellers who place them – they’re not really ‘fake’ they’re kind of stolen or maybe that’s just a fairy tale they sell because if someone offered you a ‘real’ frame for half price because it was made without the makers knowledge but was exactly the same – you’d be tempted right?

Nope trail rat, I’m down in Devon at the moment!

I think P-Jay’s point about if the chain has broken once keeping on repairing is daft is the only way I could see it not being a cynical ploy to get me to buy a new chain. Hey-ho, hopefully I’ll get to go on a nice mechanical free ride tomorrow instead!

Next issue – this guy in the pub is telling me the world isn’t round, what do you lot think? 😛

I fecked up the chain length when I set up my 1×11, ended up taking it to the LBS to see why the shifting wasn’t quite right.

Came back with 3 power links in to make it the right length, been fine for the last 12 months.

Back when I used to snap chains (SRAM), I’d have two or three in a chain and run it for ages without problems, so yeah, balls.

KMC chains now and they just don’t snap (especially when running 1x). Still carry a link just in case.