Broken Chain / Cold weather

Any relation broke mine twice in a few weeks on especially cold days ?

Water freezing in the links ?

Dunno, but my T25 bit from my socket set shattered in the cold on Saturday. Crumbled like a biscuit it did.

my Hope qr seatclamp fractured early Sunday AM, luckily i had just left the house so went back and swapped it for a steel cheapo.

I reckon so. Suspect water freezing ice expansion is to blame. Soaked mine in white spirit, then soaked in oil, then wiped very clean. All better.

Put a new one on. Figure I may just leave it with the 'out the box' sticky lube for now. I know it's usually a dust magnet but may be perfect for this weather…

could it be from the massive amount of salt that will be in the chain at this time of year…?

I snapped a chain for the first time in my life too. Again very cold. The chain, cassette and rings were about ten rides old. It didn't break at the quick link.

Yeah never done one prior to this cold snap ?

Its called the ductile to brittle transition and is a problem with some steels and some stainless steels, but not with aluminium alloys. I used to know a lot more about this but I'm going senile at 38 so I need to consult my textbooks to be really accurate and these are in the office.
The basics are that a metal which is normally ductile and will give bit under load and will take a fair bit of energy (force) before it breaks. If you cool it below its DBTT the it will fracture in brittle manner like glass, and will not take much energy to do so. Higher quality steels undergo their transition at lower temps like -50celsius or lower and lesser quality or milder steels get it at higher temps which can be near zero or in some cases even higher.

Me am very impressed, toys19!, but if it was a SRAM chain these IME can break in any temperature. And probably will.

Yup, no breakages yet but was surpised to see degree of corrosion from the salt after leaving bike for a week in the garage. Not a cheap chain either – now very well lubed.

Snapped chain twice in 2 nights. Both on solo night rides in the dark in the snowy woods. It's not a pleasant experience. The above stuff about metal stretchyness and snappyness is probably a contributing factor and also the fact that everything got covered in ice before too long. Forcing the chain over iced up cassette teeth was probably the extra load required coupled with forcing my lardy arse up a hill with 4 inches of crusty snow providing extra friction. I'm taking a hair dryer to the drivetrain after rides now and then GT85ing it before wiping dry and giving it an oiling to within an inch of its life!

Just back after taking the long way home from work and snapping my PC1 for the second time this week 🙁