Proper Chain Length For Shram & FS Mountain Bikes

Video Transcript

"On today's long travel, high-end, full suspension mountain bikes, chain length is incredibly important. Whereas, in the old days, with a hard tail or rigid frame. You can set the chain as short as it could go. Meaning, I could take almost three links out of this chain. I could run the chain this short. My biggest cog here, because I only have one, my biggest cog here. That would be the shortest link that you could go. If you have a hard time on a bike, you can set your chain up like that if you want to. It's a little bit lighter, a little bit snappier because there is less weight springing around. With full suspension bikes, because on some designs the effective length from here to here gets longer as the wheel moves up, you need new strategies for determining how short you can make your chain. The recommended way of doing that is by letting all the air out of your suspension or taking the spring off, if it is a coil sprung bike like the downhill bike. And, then you bottom the bike, you run the chain through all the gears. But instead of running it inside this big idler cog here, you run it on the outside and then you add two lengths to the shortest you can go there. And that is the approved, recommended way of determining chain length. You can go longer if you want to. But longer chains, just to avoid breaking things or whatever, but longer chains there is no benefit to a longer chain. It's heavier, it shifts slower, it's you know, eventually more to break. So with your full suspension bike, you want to bottom out the shock, you want to run the chain outside the pulleys instead of inside the pulleys, and then add two lengths when you are in your biggest gear and biggest gear. And that is how to determine chain length."