Can a half link chain help find a magic gear vertical drop out bike

answers on a post card

It can help about half a link.
It helped me.

i cant decide if its going t work or not. if it definately will then i can get one, if not ill need to spend some cash getting some welding done

just cos I love my old bike:

Completely Vert Dropouts, shown prior to half link.

• half link chain = win, similarly with my other vert drop old bike:
  
  
  

So yes is my reply.

yes, but you don't need a whole chain you can just get a single half link.

they're fucking fiddly though.
screw em, get a whole fucking chain.

i was too wondering this as my current conversion is a vertical dropout, thanks for answering it.

Are there any cases of a fail with just the 1 half link attached to a normal chain??? Will it sit nicely in the teeth?

The whole chain is also fiddly, as there are half links at both ends :-)

i have used them before no trouble, both the male to female (single half link) and male to male (double half link-ish). i don't see how they are different from normal links.

half link=problem solved. if you use a half link chain make sure you put it on the right way around, if you don't you'll soon know about it. also, chains stretch so you might want to remove a link after a while to take up the slack. my tuppence.

Half link chains have bent links, these bends starighten out which results in a chain that is 'stretched' massively.

Buy a half link n u only have one link to straighten and strecth rather than 200 of them

i'd do the halflink route and try a magic gear but it will limit your ratio options

long term either save to get new dropouts/trackends (and then the cost of repaint etc etc) or get a 2nd hand frame that fits you with trackends

Sorry for the hi-jack, didn't think it was worth starting a new thread.

How do you measure up for a magic gear? do you take c-c of the chain stays bottom bracket - dropouts???

found a gear calc that give you magic gears but not sure i totally get it.

You dont really measure for a magic gear.Its trial and error.

There is a chain length calculator on here somewhere which might help though

http://eehouse.org/fixin/formfmu.php

http://eehouse.org/fixin/formfmu.php

Brilliant.

Repped for supreme helpfulness :)

I'm having brain fail. I'm currently running 52/17 which is really shit in London at 80GI, using no half links the chain is slightly slack. I can't take a link out and put a half link in because it makes it really tight. So I'm trying to use the above calculator to work out exactly what my chainstay length is (because I'm shit at measuring) to see what other gear ratios I can use. Essentially what I'm asking is, if 52/17 results in a slack chain do I need to look at ratios suggested for a longer chainstay or shorter?

longer. only very slightly.

@NurseHolliday, switching to a 52x18 gear will move the axle back by approx 2.88mm and should eliminate the slack, provided you have the room.

It will also reduce your GI to approx 76GI

So I could put a half link in a go to 52x19? Lower GI and more skid patches. Think I need to procure some sprockets!

Or borrow some cog, go to a decent bike shop like cavendish, borrow some cogs and see which give you the best tension then buy it, done that before, much easier thanborrowing cog every now and then.

Increasing chainstay length should mean that overall chain length increases by ~1.5 to 2 times the increase. So if I have 52x17, but it has a bit of a slack chain, and the calculator suggests it is perfect for 39.71cm, then a gear ratio suggested for 39.77 should take out a little bit of the slack? Regardless, that gear ratio should work because it's so close? If anything, it's not going to make the chain more slack. 19T sprocket here I come. I hate trial and error, I need to calculate.

Someone once explained how to work out which combinations should work once you found one that worked with vert. drops by adding/removing links... I've searched all over and can't find the explanation, anyone?

The Fixed Innovations tool is great, but ideally I want to know what will work once you know that 46 x 18 works (for example). Or am I just doing it wrong...

Yeah that's exactly what I want, I know 52x17 works with a bit of slack, so I want a calculator to tell me what else should work. Maybe I should write one...

http://eehouse.org/fixin/formfmu.php