valve stem of death?

Had a chain break when screwing on the power at 80mph ,the valve stem is the least of your worries it nearly totally destroyed the chainguard and looks be damned will never own a bike without one

Or they get jammed in the wheel and lock it up. Most of the time a 530 regular chain will break into pieces before locking the wheel but the pieces flying thru the air do damage ...

If a chain literally breaks into pieces without foreign interference, but because of lack of maintenance-chances are pretty good the spokes will be deemed wothless by it's flaining remains.

I'd generally consider it good practice to keep the stem on the non-drive side,......cleaner. but in my mind a chain at high rotational velocity will remove/damage a rubber or metal stem with much ease. Be careful. Take care-

p.s. I like chaingards....can be fun to make and good worthy details!

Justen

I'm with the above if your chain breaks your screwed. Unless you have a horse shoe up your ass and it just spits it out.

Over the years I've had a number of chains break, mostly when racing. One was on a Jap bike that had the shift mechanism around the sprocket and the chain made shit of that. The rest were on Brit bikes and all the chain did was roll of the the trans sprocket. With a couple of good rattles as it hit the chain guard. The last was the primary on the Norton at El Mirage. The primary chain broke just before the timing lights. I had a fiberglass chain guard. It took a chunk out of the back and whacked my foot pretty hard (lost the big toenail a couple of weeks later). Coasted through at 122+.

But in all the years I've never heard of a chain ripping off a valve or hitting the spokes. I vote old wives tale.

Easy, do your chain maintenance and it will never break.
And if it did break, under power it is going to be pulled straight forward into the gearbox sprocket area and thence to the ground, at a very rapid rate of knots.
How it could possibly thrash around sideways and catch a valve stem is difficult to envision.
And if it did thrash sideways, through some miracle of Murphy's Law to the Enth Degree, what are the chances the paths of the rapidly moving chain and rapidly moving valve stem would intersect?

Forget the urban myths and leave your wheel as it is.

Hopper said:

Easy, do your chain maintenance and it will never break.
And if it did break, under power it is going to be pulled straight forward into the gearbox sprocket area and thence to the ground, at a very rapid rate of knots.
How it could possibly thrash around sideways and catch a valve stem is difficult to envision.
And if it did thrash sideways, through some miracle of Murphy's Law to the Enth Degree, what are the chances the paths of the rapidly moving chain and rapidly moving valve stem would intersect?

Forget the urban myths and leave your wheel as it is.

Click to expand...

It's all great advice. Hoof has a good experience with it not being spit out directly! Ever see one get bound up and destroy a set of Sportster cases when the master link was put on in the wrong direction and was removed by an obstacle in it's path? Doing all of the wheels I've done....quite a sum.....I think 3 were my witnesses to chain aggressiveness disorder. Anything can happen-Don't worry so much about the stem-keep your eye on the chain, it's tension, and it's wear as well as sprocket wear/alignment. Never use a chain/sprocket setup smaller than the series rated for your machine (I.e. 530, 630 etc....)
I don't know if there's anything else to be said about it.

Take Care,
Justen

Chain maintenance would be your best bet. I have never broke a chain personally. But did have a small marker light bracket break. Took out a valve stem on the brake side of a fatboy wheel at about 80 mph. Sat on the side of the road I80 in Iowa for 3 hours waiting for help. Got to love the class of motorcycle people that just drive by. Sort like your a scare crow in a field.