Working with Chains, Chain Tools, and Other Park Company Tools

hi my name is steve and tonight i’m going to show you how to work with a chain and a chain tool and some things that you might need to know when you’re installing or removing a chain on a schwinn air dye on a schwinn indoor spinning bike on a star trek indoor spinning bike on any kind of bike even an outdoor cycle a mountain bike or a road bike there are things you need to know about chains first and foremost you must remember that a chain is meant to go around a sprocket okay like so and what happens if you put an old chain with a new sprocket or a new sprocket with an old chain the teeth will not match correctly and over time as it rotates the chain will skip or make a lot of noise as a general rule of thumb whenever you replace a chain on any kind of bike cycle indoor bike schwinn aerodyne exercise bike no matter what it is whenever you replace a chain you should always replace the sprocket that it rides on as well the little one that goes on the flywheel or the bike wheel because then you have a new chain and a new sprocket and it will match perfectly together number two second thing you must remember when you’re replacing a chain is how to correctly take the chain apart and put it back together in order to do that you need a chain tool we like to use park tools they’re well known throughout the industry and their ease of use is second to none so what we recommend you doing is taking your park chain tool putting the chain in it like so and we’re going to begin and that is a pin and it’s going to push one of the link pins out of the chain you want to push that link pin and keep on pushing it and this is very crucial until it’s almost out of the chain not completely out you never want to push a link pin completely out of the chain because you can never get it back again the next thing you want to do is take your chain and pop it apart and you have your link pin slightly sticking through okay but not out all the way and what we can do is take our chain we’re going to put it back together you want to take your chain like so try to put it to fit it together and pop the link back together like so now we’ve got a chain with a link pin sticking in put it back in your tool and push that pin keep pushing it until it make sure it comes out the other side and it’s even so make sure that link pin is sticking out of both sides of the chain it’s sticking out of that side and also sticking out of that side and now what you’re going to have is you’re going to have a link that’s extremely stiff it’s not going to bend at all what you want to do is you want to take your chain sideways and put a little pressure on it that way and a little pressure on it that way and wiggle that link and as you wiggle it it becomes not stiff anymore now you have a link you have a chain that’s put together and you can use it on your indoor spinning bike or exercise bike now one other thing you have to remember when you’re dealing with chains is everybody talks about chains and the amount of links that they have there’s two kinds of links on a chain an inside and an outside link but they’re both considered links so this particular chain has one two three four five links this chain has five links make sure when you’re counting your links you’re counting the inside and the outside links as well now the next thing i want to talk about is on an indoor cycle bike we do not recommend you use quick links in the chain okay because they’re not as strong and they don’t hold up as well as a chain that’s completely put together so get yourself a chain tool a nice chain tool and do the job right and you’ll have a chain that will last for a long time on your cycle and make sure when you do you replace the sprocket as well