Vintage Balloon Tire Bicycle Chains & Sprockets

Video Transcript

"All of these old balloon tire bikes had chain guards. You rarely find a chain guard on a bike today, but they served a great purpose. A chain guard keeps your pants from getting grease from the chain. People actually rode in street clothes on these bicycles, they used it for transportation, something that people rarely do today. But this chain guard is ready to remove, so I can show you what's underneath. Here's the front chain ring. The first unique thing you see about this chain ring, is the spacing between the teeth, this is called a skipped tooth, or inch pitch chain setup. And it works the way a normal cycle chain does today, but there are gaps in the chain, and gaps in these teeth. And again you just peddle forward like a normal bike, and go backwards to apply the breaks. You can follow the chain back here and you'll see the sprocket; if you can see in there, that sprocket of course has the skipped tooth setup. The skipped tooth chains were heavier, and they're hard to find today, but if you find a bike that has a skipped tooth chain, you've got a good old bike."