Slipped a chain, luckly its vietnam so I only had to push the bike down 200 feet of highway and 1 intersection before I found a Honda shop. I'm lucky I wasn't stranded in some mountains or offf-road.
this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2026
53 points (100.0% liked)
Motorcycles
3144 readers
3 users here now
Here we discuss everything related to riding, maintenance and gear.
Rules:
- Be respectful and inclusive.
- No harassment, hate speech, or trolling.
- Engage in constructive discussions.
- Share relevant content.
- No advertising or self promotion.
founded 3 years ago
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Isn't this caused by not replacing the chain often enough? It stretches a bit once worn and then can bear more towards the edges of the sprocket.
My owner's manual says to only replace the chain and sprocket together and that only replacing the chain will cause rapid wear.
Interesting! I'm coming at this from a cycling perspective where checking your chain for wear is important to reduce wear on the cassette/chainrings (sprockets). There are dedicated tools to measure chains for this reason so it's surprising to me that the same process isn't common in motorcycles. Maybe it's a cost thing? A chain is way cheaper to replace on a bicycle than the multiple sprockets.
The pins of the chain wear out their bushings over time and the chain then stretches. This means each link won't sit down deep valley between the teeth and wear down the teeth faster due to smaller contact area now acting as the bearing surface.
There's only 2 sprockets on a bike, since it uses a geared transmission. I got my chain and sprockets replaced for 18USD, labor included, which I suspect is somehow more than it would cost for a non-single speed bicycle, because bicycles prices are weird.
Under $20 explains why nobody worries about it. You could probably extend the life of the sprockets by replacing the chain, but it's not worth the hassle at $20 for a whole new set.
The smaller bikes only cost 10 lmao.
Craziness. Even dirt cheap garbage chainrings for a bicycle cost way more than that, with nice ones running hundreds of dollars easy.
Riding up mountains, over dirt, and constant acceleration and braking probably exacerbates things. It slipped whike accelerating on a dirt shoulder to overtake a bus.
It's caused by age and wear. Plenty of things can exacerbate said wear and cause you to replace sprockets sooner, but they are a consumable item and will need to be replaced occasionally no matter what.